ASU Football: Todd Graham offers defensive insight, leaves QB battle open

(Photo: Scotty Bara/WCSN)

With just five days remaining until Arizona State takes the field against Norther Arizona, head coach Todd Graham offered insight into what his starting lineup will look like in Monday afternoon’s press conference.

Still, the quarterback position is anyone’s guess, as Graham remained non-committal to either Manny Wilkins or Brady White.

“We’ve got, obviously, the two guys that we have a lot of confidence in,” Graham said. “We probably won’t do anything, but [we’re] letting coach [Chip] Lindsey let me know when he wants to do that [announce a starter]. Our team knows who our guy is and we’ll run out there with the starting lineup.”

On the other side of the ball, Graham mentioned that redshirt junior AJ Latu and junior college transfer Koron Crump would rotate at Devilbacker, effectively keeping sophomore Joseph Wicker at defensive end.

“I always tell him that he’s [Latu] one of my favorite players on defense,” Graham said. “Just the passion from which he plays, he’s very tenacious, he’s a starter. He’ll be a guy, him and Koron will both start at the Devil position.”

At the Spur position, Graham acknowledged a potential platoon comprised of redshirt sophomore Tyler Whiley and redshirt junior Marcus Ball.

He also noted that Ball has the type of skillset that could make him an asset in other linebacker roles.

“Well, they’re different,” Graham said. “Marcus is obviously what we consider more of a Sam linebacker and they both [Whiley and Ball] play that Spur position. I see both of them playing.”

Now that Graham has designated his starters, he said he’s ready to see them put it together on the field against a formidable opponent in Northern Arizona.

Last season, the Lumberjacks averaged 303.2 yards per game. With the newly reconstructed secondary, all eyes will be on the back end to see how the new unit performs.

“I’ve got confidence in our guys,” Graham said. “We’ve got to obviously know the things that we’ve got to be better at, but we’ve got to come in and execute. The biggest thing you’ve got to do is, a lot of people look at games like this, this team put up a lot of numbers and yards last year against Arizona. We’ve got to go out and be physical about what we’re doing and do a great job, you know, performing at a high level. That’s what I want to see.”

Arizona State survived a scare from its first and only FCS opponent in 2015 when Cal Poly came to Tempe. In what ultimately became a 35-21 victory in favor of the Sun Devils, the defense allowed 284 rushing yards on 72 total attempts. Graham, however, attributes the struggles to Cal Poly’s rushing scheme and feels as though his team is prepared to start the season off on the right foot, regardless of the opponent.

“That triple option wishbone is a challenge,” Graham said. “I don’t really look at things like that, just because that game was a game where we struggled, it had more to do with their scheme and they were really good at executing that scheme. That scheme is very difficult. You can’t take anybody for granted, you’ve got to go out and you’ve got to play.”

Graham placed an emphasis on his team’s goals and what he believed the key to accomplishing those goals would be – consistent progression.

“They key to winning a championship and accomplishing the goals that we want to accomplish is getting better every week,” Graham said. “Number one, I want to go out and win, that’s the number one objective.”