Cal Football Countdown: 96 Days Post Spring Snapshot, Arizona State
As a part of our 100 day countdown to Cal football, we're looking at Cal's opponents in 2019. That includes Arizona State, as the Sun Devils are coming into year two of the Herm Edwards era. Cal hasn't played ASU since a 51-41 loss in Tempe in 2016, and both teams have completely new staffs since then.
To get a fuller picture of the Sun Devils, we caught up with Hod Rabino, publisher of Devils Digest, to ask a few questions about the Bears Week five opponent.
What did you see from the QB Position this spring at Arizona State, as they look to replace Manny Wilkins?
Hod Rabino: It was very important for the coaching staff to have a two man race at the end of spring practice, that’s exactly what they achieved. Myself and some other beat writers thought it was going to be the only returning scholarship quarterback, Dillon Sterling-Cole, who’s going to be a junior this year, and true freshman Jayden Daniels, that those were going to be the last two left standing, and sure enough, that’s exactly what happened.
That’s the two-man quarterback battle, Dillon Sterling-Cole, with his experience and knowing the scheme, a scheme that’s not going to change that much at all, even though Manny Wilkins and N’Keal Harry aren’t there anymore. You’d think he’d have an advantage, but he hasn’t been able to significantly and clearly separate himself from Jayden Daniels. When it comes to Dillon Sterling-Cole, he went through a big-time maturity process both physically and mentally that really showed, but here comes Jayden Daniels, and everyone has these blue chip true freshmen that have these great recruiting rankings and more than 50% of the time they don’t work out. But Daniels has been as good as advertised in just having the poise and the decision-making beyond his years, making it be that two-man race. It’s gonna be interesting to see who wins it, Daniel is the ‘sexier’ pick between the two, but I have no qualms if Dillon Sterling-Cole wins the job, because I think if he won the job, he won the job because he beat out a damn good young quarterback.
Who does Rob Likens turn to on offense with N’Keal Harry gone to the Patriots?
HR: One thing to keep in mind, N’Keal Harry is a huge void to fill, there really is a lot of experience coming back at wide receiver. When you look up and down at the returning experience, other than quarterback position, you’re going to have five senior offensive linemen starting, you’re going to have a senior tight end, you have Eno Benjamin, he’s a junior, but after rushing for over 1600 yards last year, he might as well be an 8th year senior at this point.
At wide receiver there’s definitely talent coming back. If you’re looking for the guy that’s going to attempt to replace N’Keal Harry, I’d look at Brandon Aiyuk who transferred from junior college last year, I think he showed some flashes. Arizona State’s bowl game against Fresno State was not memorable on offense, but one of the good things that came out of it was Brandon Aiyuk, (Aiyuk) really shined there, not just in the passing game but returning punts and returning kicks. Any coach you ask on offense has high expectations for Brandon Aiyuk, maybe not to replace Harry, but coming pretty darn close to it, they have a lot of confidence in him.
Then you have senior Kyle Williams, he plays in the slot and sometimes with how Arizona State uses the slot, it’s more for blocking and maybe not as involved in the passing game, but Williams is a really high IQ football player, and I have no doubt in my mind if he needed to shoulder more of the load in 2019, he’d be up for it. Then the third starting receiver is Frank Darby, the downfield threat, just like Aiyuk, showed a lot last year. Then there’s a young receiver, Geordon Porter, who redshirted last year and I think being the first one off the bench for the wide receivers, he’s someone who could really contribute as well.
I really think the picture at wide receiver is a little rosier, and mentioning Eno Benjamin, they’re not going to ask the quarterback and the passing game to do that much, when you’ve got a stud like Eno Benjamin running behind five senior offensive linemen.
What were some of the standouts and the takeaways from the defense in the spring?
On the defense, there’s a huge disparity between the defensive line, linebackers and the secondary. They literally had three defensive line in the spring that played in 2018. They had to convert an offensive lineman and a tight end so that they’d have the numbers there. You know the saying, ‘the cavalry is on its way,’ that applies to the defensive line, because they barely had bodies there, it’s one big incomplete grade this spring, I don’t think you can really take anything out of it. Even out of the three defensive linemen returning, two of them were injured for parts of spring.
At linebacker, they had two guys who were sensational freshman last year, Merlin Robertson, who won Pac-12 freshman of the year, and Darien Butler, they’re the number one and number two returning tacklers from 2018. Obviously that’s a great nucleus going into 2019. Then the third starter last year, Tyler Johnson, also a freshman, he had to miss spring practice because of an injury. A senior who never really got a chance to shine, Khaylan Kearse-Thomas busted out on the scene in spring practice. Antonio Pierce, the linebackers coach, probably as a motivation ploy, he said Kearse-Thomas is the only penciled in starter he has for the 2019 season. He’s obviously trying to light a fire under everyone’s butts, but that guy showed up big-time.
When you look at the secondary, I think the first thing that pops out to you is that there’s a pair of cornerbacks that are going to go into their third consecutive year starting, that’s Kobe Williams and Chase Lucas. That’s a huge luxury to have, as we know, cornerback in this conference is one of the most thankless positions.
Another freshman who stood out the last six games, Aashari Croswell, a safety, he had a really good spring, was able to redefine his body, show that he understands the game on a much higher level. He’s probably going to have a breakout season in 2019.
Another guy fans probably don’t know about is Tyler Whiley, he was hurt in fall camp and was granted a hardship, medical redshirt. He was one of the best players last year in fall camp. He came on slowly in spring, but by the end, he really came along and he’s gonna be a starter next year, he had two interceptions in the spring game. You look at the secondary up and down, there definitely are some proven players, the depth, they definitely are a little young, but nonetheless, they definitely have a lot of talent. It’s really hard not to be excited about the linebackers and the secondary coming out of spring practice, but the defensive line, the picture is so cloudy there.
If you were to pick a player from each side of the ball who impressed during the spring, who would you pick?
That’s hard because there’s a ton of experience coming back, none of the players snuck up on you, but almost by default, I would say QB Jayden Daniels. I know he came in with high accolades, but that sometimes translates to a pretty vicious learning curve. He was playing beyond his years, never got rattled, and what I liked the most about him, he was ranked number 2 and number 3 dual threat quarterback. The thing about it, when I talked to him and his coaches before he went to ASU, they weren’t mad about that title, but he’s a pocket quarterback, he put up some crazy numbers in high school. You label somebody a dual threat, it’s almost that he’s a better runner than passer, Daniels definitely showed that. I feel the fact that he proved to be real poised in the pocket, and when he did take off, you’d see why he’s gifted as a dual threat quarterback.
On defense, I’ll go back to linebacker in Khaylan Kearse-Thomas. Ever since he came in, it always seemed like he had the darndest of luck, there was just better talent ahead of him playing, snaps were really hard to come by, he had some injuries in his five years at ASU too, I don’t know if the lightbulb went on, but that guy looked phenomenal in the spring.
What's the biggest thing that needs to be done for ASU in fall camp?
Defensive line, they really need to figure out how to sort everything out. I’m a big believe that you don’t just need bodies, you need to have talent. You can have 9-10 defensive linemen on the roster, and I think that’s what Arizona State’s going to have when August rolls by, but how many of those guys are legit two-deep if not starter guys, you can’t stress enough how important it is for that question mark to be addressed successfully. They’ve got great linebackers and a great secondary, but if that group is not going to play at an adequate level at worst, it’s not going to matter how good the linebackers and secondary are.