(Photo: Brady Klain/WCSN)
Every football team has to have belief in order to have success. Belief in their teammates, belief in their coaches, and belief in their preparation.
After two weeks of the 2018 season, the Arizona State football team is certainly showing that they have that aspect of winning firmly taken care of.
In a back-and-forth, “…rock ’em sock ’em” football game according to head coach Herm Edwards against the No. 15 Michigan State Spartans, the Sun Devils came out victorious 16-13, thanks to big plays from their play-makers, poise from their experienced leaders, and steady leadership from the man in charge.
With wide receiver N’Keal Harry being held to a manageable five receptions for 62 yards with just under nine minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, quarterback Manny Wilkins trusted his number one target to make a big play when the team needed it, and Harry delivered.
Running a simple go-route to the end zone trailing by seven, Wilkins placed the ball on Harry’s back shoulder where only he could get it, and Harry reached back over Spartan corner Justin Layne to haul in the 27-yard touchdown pass to pull the Sun Devils even at 13.
“We have good enough players that will make plays. Eventually [Harry’s] going to make a play. You can cover him for a while, but he’s going to make a play,” Edwards said.
“That touchdown was really just me and Manny being on the same page,” Harry said. “He trusted me to come down with the ball, and he put the ball in the perfect spot… that’s all the extra work we’ve done after practice through the last couple years and it showed.”
Wilkins relied on his rapport with Harry to give his team the big play when they needed it. And like all experienced players, even on a night when Wilkins did not have his sharpest performance, he didn’t let it affect him moving forward.
“All the mistakes that we made, all the throws that I missed, the interception, at the end of the day we came in at halftime, we made the adjustments that we needed to make, and we won the game,” Wilkins said. “That’s all that matters at the end of the day, we’re 2-0 now.”
With the Herm Edwards experiment off to a flying start through the first two games, some doubters may slowly be turning into believers in Tempe.
For the 64-year-old head coach however, belief was something that he knew he was going to have to earn from his players when he stepped in last winter.
“When you practice a little bit differently than everybody and do other things, people question you,” Edwards said. “Sometimes players question you. But when you win, they continue to buy in. I think by now, I’ve been here since December, I think these players trust me. I have their best interests at heart. It’s always about them, it’ll always be about them.”
The Sun Devils saw their efforts against the Spartans rewarded on Sunday with the release of the AP Poll that saw them tabbed as the No. 23 team in the land, two spots ahead of their opponent who took a tumble of ten spots.
As good as this victory feels for all those involved, the players in the locker room know that this is but a small stepping stone to where they’re trying to build to.
“We can’t be too riled up about this because honestly we expect it,” Wilkins said. “We practice so hard, we put so much time in the offseason for games like this, for games to be won in the fourth quarter. Our will and our want to win, you guys could see it, and we expected to win.”
Bobby Kraus is a football beat writer for the Walter Cronkite Sports Network. You can follow him on Twitter @bobbykraus22
