(Photo: Haley Spracale/WCSN)
TEMPE — Since the beginning of Fall Camp, Arizona State Football has focused hard on finding its identity on offense.
With its inexperienced receiving core, a powerful run-game, and junior quarterback Jayden Daniels leading the charge, it got off to a rocky start.
The chemistry between Daniels and his wide receivers was off early in the season, between errand throws and miscommunication. Lack of discipline at the line of scrimmage against BYU and Southern Utah was also a lurking hindrance.
Despite it all, the Sun Devils have found themselves ranked after a massive win at UCLA and a solid 28-10 victory over Stanford on Friday night, in large part because of offensive coordinator Zak Hill.
The second-year play caller has worked with his unit every week and has started to see the results come to fruition as time has passed.
“I think you learn from every game,” Hill said. “We talked last week after UCLA and we hit those shots in that game. As far as the overall offense is concerned, guys understand what we’re trying to do and they’re filling in with their roles and we’re coming together.”
While the scoreboard hasn’t always shown highly-productive results, the ASU offense has clicked. Over its last two contests against UCLA and Stanford, ASU has amassed 895 yards of total offense (462 passing, 433 rushing) with eight touchdowns.
Regardless of the result, Hill’s impact goes beyond what the scoreboard shows, reflected in the creativity he implements into his play calling and how it has set up the large scoring outbursts.
Exhibit A was against Stanford on Friday night.
Before running what can be considered an old faithful in ASU’s playbook (a 22-yard end around touchdown run with redshirt freshman wide receiver Elijhah Badger that also resulted in a score against Colorado), Hill decided to run some other trickery.
On second-and-four toward the beginning of the second quarter, Daniels took the snap and handed off to redshirt senior running back Rachaad White. The play presented itself as an outside run to the right. White instead proceeded to lend the ball to junior wideout Ricky Pearsall, who came streaking into the backfield for a flea-flicker toss back to Daniels, who dropped a teardrop into the arms of the wide open graduate tight end Curtis Hodges for a 32-yard gain.
“I’ve had that in the arsenal for a while,” Hill said. “We had it in for a couple of games last year and we didn’t call it but we felt like this was a good game for it.”
BYU ran the same play for a score against the Sun Devils a few weeks ago, and Hill made sure to incorporate it into his arsenal after the Sun Devils’ defense got beat with it.
Hill’s play calling on Friday night against Stanford has been a build up. Exhibit B of Hill’s show could be seen against Colorado and Southern Utah.
Pearsall has been the facilitator in a few double-pass plays the Sun Devils have run in the past, but he’s done it twice this season.
Against Southern Utah, he found an open Hodges for a first down, and against the Buffaloes, he found the end zone.
A 30-yard TD pass to White proved to be the only score through the air that night in the win, and once again, Hill’s boldness paid off.
Against UCLA, he decided to air it out, running double moves and specialized route combinations to tear the Bruins’ secondary apart with almost 300 yards through the air, 132 of which came via Pearsall.
And while the Sun Devils were held to just a single touchdown on offense in the second half of their Friday night bout against Stanford, Hill’s canny paid off once again against the Cardinal.
“We felt like the misdirection stuff was going to be good for us,” Hill said. “To try to get them moving and out of position a little bit.”
When the Sun Devils have put together methodical drives where the offense has been balanced, it’s given ASU a chance to win every week.
Hill believes that the offense is still improving, and that coming up empty-handed in the second half against the Cardinal will be fuel for the fire heading into next week’s matchup with Utah, who held ASU to just a field goal in their previous meeting in 2019.
“We’re in a good spot,” Hill said. “We’ve got talented guys at all positions and I know they’re hungry. Every game you’d like to have a perfect game, but you learn from it and the vibe and energy from these guys throughout the week is awesome.”
