ASU Football: Secondary changes make impact on suspect unit

(Photo: Brett Deckert/WCSN)

To say the Arizona State secondary has been suspect to start the year wouldn’t be telling the whole story.

While the Sun Devils are 5-1 following their 23-20 win over UCLA, the secondary was statistically bad entering the contest. In the first five games of the season, the defense allowed 36 points per game and 390 passing yards, three touchdowns and just under one interception to opposing quarterbacks, due in part to the 43 passing plays of 15 yards or more that the secondary unit gave up over that span.

Against the Bruins, the defense gave up only 20 points, holding quarterback Josh Rosen to two touchdowns and an interception in the process due in part to the personnel moves made on the back end.

Head coach Todd Graham and his staff elected to move linebacker Marcus Ball to the bandit safety position, a spot on the defense that was a model of inconsistency early on.

Ball is the third player to start at Bandit through six games, following Chad Adams and J’Marcus Rhodes.

“He had a couple of good practices at it [Bandit safety],” defensive backs coach T.J. Rushing said. “He’s a guy that’s smart, a guy that can be versatile, and I told the guys position flexibility is something we preach and so we tried it, see how it is and it ended up being a pretty good move.”

Ball has played in all six games this season; he entered Saturday’s game with 16 tackles through five games. At his new position, however, Ball added 10 tackles came up with an interception.

“You’ve got to take on a different mentality at safety,” Ball said. “It’s not always about getting those big hits that I like to do, it’s just about getting it down, but I do like to hit.”

Following his performance on Saturday, Ball was recognized as the Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Week.

“I’m one of those guys who don’t really celebrate much,” Ball said. “I think it’s cool when you hit a guy and you look at him, you don’t say anything, he just knows that you just lit him up, you know. He knows and I know that I just lit him up and he knows that every time 31 is coming I’m coming to light him up again.”

At corner, Graham and Rushing turned to junior college transfer Maurice Chandler at the field corner spot rather than regular starter De’Chavon Hayes. Chandler missed the first five games of the season due to injury.

In his first game, Chandler posted seven tackles and, alongside Ball, helped bring a more physical dynamic to the secondary. Rushing feels that Chandler’s performance will help boost the level of play for the other corners on the roster.

“He did a good job competing,” Rushing said. “Now everybody knows that we’ve got a competitive room. It’s going to be good because now competition breeds better practices and everybody’s out there competing like crazy in practice because they want to play on Saturday, so the fact that he went out and played well, it’s good for our room.”

Chandler has battled injuries in his time with the program, and now that he was healthy, he knew he had to rely on everything that he had learned from his coaches and teammates to take advantage of his opportunity.

“I wasn’t nervous about the game at all,” Chandler said. “That’s where I go back to relying on technique and relying on the coaching that the coaches give you, just that whole practice and preparation, that’s what it is, preparation.”

With the injury to Kareem Orr, Chandler was forced to adapt to a new situation early in the game. Regardless, his preparation with the other corners in practice helped him stay in sync with Hayes after he entered the game.

“As a secondary we’re all in tune,” Chandler said. “That’s why in practice we switch with each other, that’s why we all know how each other plays. Especially the safeties, we know where to be and like how you play everything but, I mean, with Kareem going down it just kind of made everyone step up even more, especially having that big part of the defense down.”

While Orr was spotted on Muscle Beach at Tuesday’s practice with a brace on his injured knee and a limp, Rushing is still confident that he will return to action against Colorado.

“I think that he’ll be fine,” Rushing said. “That’s what I’m hoping, what I’m banking on, you know, we’ll see what happens.”

Even with the way the new-look secondary performed on Saturday, Rushing isn’t sure if it was the best group he’s deployed this season.

In fact, he still views the secondary assignments as a static process.

“I like to go week-to-week, day-by-day, moment-by-moment,” Rushing said. “You know, whoever’s playing well at the time, that’s who gets to trot out on the grass, they all know that and that’s why they practice so hard and that’s why they go out and play good on Saturdays.”