(Photo: Evan Barcanic/WCSN)
TEMPE — Under a year ago today no one knew how the college football landscape would look come spring 2024. Teams were shuffling in and out of conferences at whirlwind rates, but now the dust has settled, homes have been found and new opponents have taken aim. It’s time to prepare.
Soon, come 8 a.m. on Tuesday, March 26, the currently dormant Bill Kajikawa practice fields in Tempe will be alive again with the sounds of clattering cleats, helmets jostling, players and coaches alike laboring, and a large distinctive blaring horn from a man whose only goal in mind is what he calls “raising the minimum standard.”
“The reality is what is the minimum standard you’re going to allow?” Dillingham said to the media Thursday afternoon. “You can’t set a minimum standard that 40% of your guys are going to fail at. I would say this year the minimum standard that we can reach is much higher than (last year).”
Arizona State’s football team finished its 2023 campaign — its last in the Pac-12 — with 3-9 record. Spring camp has now arrived providing the chance to implement early preparations for ASU’s first season in the Big 12. A host of new opponents means equally new challenges to overcome and new opportunities for success. The two traditional headliners atop the Big 12 Conference, Texas and Oklahoma, have left for the SEC, leaving a vacancy at the pinnacle for whoever wants it most.
As the Sun Devils ready to join the race for the conference peak, fans get the first inklings of how the 2024 group will shape up. Here are three newcomers to watch, two returners with the most to prove, and one big storyline (spoiler: ASU found a new offensive playcaller) entering Spring Camp.
THREE NEWCOMERS TO WATCH
Redshirt Sophomore Running Back Raleek Brown (Transfer from USC):
The former Trojan was a highly-touted four-star recruit coming out of high school. Brown was ranked as the No. 3 running back in the country in the 2022 recruiting class according to 247 Sports when he joined USC from Mater Dei. Brown flashed promise in his first year as an all-around weapon in Southern California, rushing for 227 yards and three touchdowns on 42 attempts and another three touchdowns and 175 yards on 16 catches. After an encouraging freshman campaign, Brown lost his spot in the backfield being moved to a slot receiver role ahead of his sophomore season. He would feature in only six plays from scrimmage in two games played, leading him to transfer.
Brown landed in Tempe where he’ll be looking to revitalize a promising young career. Listed at 5-foot-8 and 185 pounds, Brown is a small but lethal offensive weapon. He’s shown an impressive ability to locate and burst through holes, especially in zone and off-tackle run schemes with an excess of quickness and an ability to make defenders miss at the second level and in space. Dillingham said after last season his team needed more athletes, and that’s exactly what Brown can provide. Dillingham compared Brown to Philadelphia Eagles running back Kenneth Gainwell, who has a 5-foot-9-inch, 201-pound frame and played under Dillingham when he was an offensive coordinator at Memphis.
Sophomore Defensive Back Cole Martin (Transfer from Oregon):
Cole Martin returned home, a key movement Dillingham has preached since his introductory press conference. The former four-star recruit was rated the 29th-best corner in the nation and the fourth overall player out of Arizona in the 2023 class, according to 247Sports. Martin was a 2022 All-American out of Basha High School in Chandler and held offers to marquee programs such as Georgia, Florida, and Alabama before committing to the Oregon Ducks. He featured in 14 games during his freshman year, tallying 21 tackles with one pass breakup and an interception that occurred at Mountain America Stadium. Now, he’s back in his home state ready to aid in Dillingham’s effort to revive ASU under defensive coordinator Brian Ward.
At Oregon, Martin showed a quick twitch ability that would allow him to cover smaller slot receivers in nickel packages effectively. The former four-star also ran track in high school and possesses impressive downhill speed — Martin ran a 10.88-second 100-meter dash his sophomore year — that will allow him to keep pace against even the fastest of Big 12 playmakers. While he didn’t compile many tackles for the Ducks, he did rack in 67 tackles his junior season at Basha and has shown a willingness to get physical. His all-around traits make him a prototypical nickel corner and spring camp will be his first opportunity to show his ability to be a compete. He will have to battle for the No. 1 spot in the slot corner position.
“(Sophomore defensive back Keith) Abney and (redshirt senior defensive) Macen Williams are also (competing for ASU’s nickel back role),” Ward said. “I mean, it’s a three-horse race there.”
Freshman running back Jason Brown (2023 MaxPreps Washington High School Football Player of the Year)
Brown comes in with high expectations for his first season in Tempe as he was the highest-rated signee of ASU’s incoming freshman class. The four-star recruit from O’Dea High School in Seattle, Washington put up historic numbers in his two varsity seasons for the Fighting Irish. He tallied 2,300 total yards, 1,958 of which were on the ground, and 37 touchdowns in his award-winning senior season. Before that, Brown ran for over 1,600 rushing yards and scored 21 touchdowns in his junior season. He left O’Dea as the all-time leading rusher passing current Minnesota Vikings running back Myles Gaskin. Brown was also a participant at the All-American Bowl and the Polynesian Bowl and was named a MaxPreps Junior All-American in 2022.
The Seattle native is flat-out elusive. Operating out of a primarily high school Wing-T offense — a system that prioritizes the run game with two players in the backfield along with two tight ends on the offensive line — Brown faced continuous seven to eight-man boxes. Brown repeatedly showcased an ability to make multiple defenders miss in tight spaces and navigate loaded boxes before hitting the open field and unleashing lethal second-level separation speed. The running back has always been fast, competing at the Junior Olympics as young as eight years old, placing top five in the 100, 200, and 400-meter races. Brown’s aptitude to carve apart loaded fronts and completely disconnect from defensive backs with pure end-line speed will serve him well in Tempe, especially in the more spaced-out college game.
TWO RETURNERS WITH SOMETHING TO PROVE
Redshirt Freshman Quarterback Jaden Rashada
Rashada is one of ASU’s highest-rated recruits ever as a four-star with a 0.97 composite ranking according to 247Sports. The California native was the 6th ranked and the highest-rated non-five-star quarterback in the nation for the 2023 high school class. Last fall, Rashada became the second ASU freshman quarterback — the other being the 2023 Heisman Trophy winner LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels in 2019 — to start week one when he took the field in a 24-21 season-opening win against Southern Utah. Rashada ended up sidelined with a knee injury against Oklahoma State in his second game, nearly missing his entire freshman campaign before he returned against Arizona. He finished the season with 485 passing yards, four touchdown passes, and three interceptions with a 53.7 completion percentage.
Competition has arrived with redshirt freshman Michigan State transfer quarterback Sam Leavitt, who Dillingham recruited at Florida State before he left for Oregon. Leavitt, an Oregon native, watched what Dillingham did with the Ducks, but he was not recruited by the program. Senior quarterback Trenton Bourguet, who has started the most games at quarterback for ASU over its last two seasons, is returning too. While Dillingham has been open about the prospect of an upcoming quarterback battle, but Rashada will spend much of that time watching from the sidelines this spring. As Sun Devil Source first reported, Rashada will miss the entire spring season with a thumb injury that he said occurred while he was moving boxes. Dillingham said Thursday it’s possible for Rashada to participate in limited individual and 7-on-7 drills as the spring progresses.
In his three games at ASU, Rashada flashed a strong arm ability that saw him connect with his skill position players for multiple explosive plays, a key aspect the team lacked in Rashada’s absence. Rashada does have a strong understanding of Dillingham’s offense, but he will have to learn new offensive coordinator Marcus Arroyo’s scheme, which Dillingham said will make up 30-40 percent of ASU’s offense this season with the majority carrying over from last season.
“(Rashada) will be out until we think he’s in a good space to get back,” Dillingham said. “Hopefully by the end of the spring ball, he’s taking some seven-on-seven reps (quarterback and receivers playing non-tackle touch football against defensive backs and linebackers) and some non-team (individual throwing) reps.”
Redshirt Junior Defensive Lineman Clayton Smith
Smith is another former highly-touted prospect who found himself in Tempe last season. The edge rusher was originally a four-star and the third-ranked edge recruit in the nation in 2021, committing to Oklahoma. After only appearing in seven games for the Sooners over two seasons, in 2023 for the Sun Devils Smith finally flashed the impact player he was projected to be out of high school. He tallied 21 total tackles, 5.5 tackles for loss, and 4.5 sacks in 11 games played. Smith seemed a rejuvenated player under Ward and was an essential cog in the defensive unit.
Ward regularly assembled his defense in 4-2-5 nickel formations with four-down lineman fronts that emphasized one-on-one matchups for the outside rushers. This boded well for Smith. In isolation against offensive tackles, he showed functional strength to drive linemen back and disengage to attack quarterbacks climbing the pocket. Smith also showed an ability to navigate offensive lineman stunts and still get home causing pressure. According to Ward he still has questions to answer about his usability on obvious running downs and spring camp will be his first chance to answer them and showcase his reportedly 15 extra pounds of muscle added to his frame.
“(By the start of the season), I hope we’re looking at a 250-pound Clayton Smith,” Ward said. “Whereas last year he played around 235 (pounds). That kind of weight on a lean body, it’s going to be all muscle. We don’t want him to be someone that teams feel they can run at.
One Big Storyline
Offensive Coordinator Marcus Arroyo
2023 was a forgettable one for ASU’s offense, to say the least. The Sun Devils ranked dead last in most offensive categories in the now-extinct Pac-12. A lot of the program’s bottom ranking in total yards could have been attributed to six players having to throw passes for the team during the season due to injuries and a host of offensive line injuries as well. However, offensive play-calling inconsistency also played a role. About midway through the year, Dillingham, former Oregon offensive coordinator, relieved then-offensive coordinator Beau Baldwin of his play-calling duties. Now Baldwin is gone and in his place comes Dillingham’s predecessor in Eugene. Former Ducks offensive coordinator and most recently UNLV head coach Marcus Arroyo has joined the Sun Devils’ coaching staff as the head of the offensive coaching cohort. He brings with him a more physical style of play than commonly associated with Oregon offensive masterminds.
Arroyo found success in his ability to add wrinkles to traditional blocking schemes, confusing defenses, to create explosive running plays. Arroyo deployed various blocking stunts like sending offensive linemen straight into the second level to block linebackers and creating elevated running lanes. Traditionally a lineman would help quickly double and chip block a defensive lineman before climbing into the second level. Under Arroyo, he would head straight up the field to help create the lanes. Arroyo was also known for running multiple plays, such as different run-pass options, out of the same formations with the same receiver and/or tight end motions. The wrinkle being whether the motioning player blocks at the end of his motion or releases into the flat.
By showing the same front every time and just adding small variations to the end of plays Arroyo’s offense became extremely hard to predict and read on a play-by-play basis. Dillingham is no stranger to wrinkles in Tempe. Last year the then-first-year head coach deployed trick plays regularly such as a swinging gate formation where the offensive line is offset wide from the center and quarterback, and running back passes from then-junior halfback Cam Skattebo, who attempted 15 passes in 2023 completing six for 130 yards, a touchdown and one interception. The union between the two similar styles of Arroyo and Dillingham will be something closely monitored in spring camp and something Arroyo looks forward to in his first season in Tempe.
“That was the exciting part about when me and (DIllingham) first started talking,” Arroyo said. “You get through the interview process about putting people into place and beliefs and core values and then you really get down to ‘X’s and O’s’. I think that’s when we both found out that there were some exciting pieces in there.”
