ASU Football: Untested defense could make or break 2018 for Sun Devils

Photo: Nicholas Badders/WCSN

There’s an old saying in football: Defense wins championships.

For head coach Herm Edwards and the Arizona State football team, the Pac-12 championship has been in their sights from the moment Edwards assumed his role this past December.

In order to turn that vision into a reality, they will have to restore some semblance of reliability to the defensive side of the ball. Last season under defensive coordinator Phil Bennett, Arizona State finished 107th in the FBS in total defense, allowing 447 yards per game. In 2016, with Keith Patterson at the controls, only Texas Tech finished lower than ASU, who allowed a staggering 521 yards per game.

“I think when you look at our football team there’s a lot of questions that haven’t been answered. One is defensively,” Edwards said. “Brought in a new defensive coordinator, new defensive staff, we have a brand new defense. That’s going to be interesting to watch that unfold.”

Enter Danny Gonzales.

The former defensive coordinator/safeties coach at San Diego State for the past seven seasons has installed his unconventional 3-3-5 scheme in Tempe going into 2018, which is a challenge for any group of players to learn, let alone a group that has so little experience at the college level.

“The two corners, Kobe [Williams] and Chase [Lucas] are our most experienced guys on defense with Renell [Wren] and George [Lea]. The inside guys, Demonte [King] has played some, nobody else has,” Gonzales said. “The best thing is, the thing that they’re learning is that if they miss, they’re missing in the right spot. And if we play as hard as we expect, we’ll have two or three guys there to make the tackle if we miss. We are so untested that we gotta play a football game to see where we’re at.”

One of the players on the defensive side of the ball with any notable collegiate playing time is Lucas, a redshirt sophomore cornerback coming off a freshman All-American campaign in 2017.

According to the Chandler native, the biggest key to mastering the new system was to accumulate as much time in it as possible.

“It was really difficult during the springtime because it’s something that we never did before. We’d never seen three safeties at the end of the defense,” Lucas said. “It was hard at first doing zone and man, and trying to switch it up when the offense is in motion, but when you get used to it and as time goes on, it’s like second nature. It was difficult at first, no lie about it, but when you get it right the sky’s the limit.”

Joining Lucas in the secondary in 2018 will be redshirt senior Jalen Harvey, making the transition this season from wide receiver to safety.

Having made the transition from offense to defense one season prior, Lucas has tried his best to offer words of wisdom to Harvey to ease the process.

“Every time I talk to him, when he gives up a play and he gets on himself I’m like, ‘Yo as a DB you gotta have a short memory. Just get in, get out, and keep rolling with the plays,’ Lucas said. “I know he’s going to do really big things this year and I’m excited for him.”

In the eyes of Gonzales, Harvey has made massive strides in his transition since the coaching staff took over in the spring, and his presence is needed in more ways than one.

“In the spring, Jalen was one that was relying on his football instincts. He wasn’t really sharp in coverages, he was kind of doing his own thing as far as trying to just be a play-maker,” Gonzales said. “Now he’s starting to act like a defensive player. Being that he’s one of our guys that has played football at this level, albeit on the offensive side, he’s being a little bit more of a vocal leader, which we need in the secondary especially from the Tillman spot.”

The beginning of the 2018 season will be extremely difficult to start off for the Sun Devils defensively opening up against the UTSA Roadrunners, a team that averaged just under 200 rushing yards per game in 2017, followed by a visit in Week 2 from the #11 Michigan State Spartans, who could be a top-ten team depending on the first week of games across the country.

Trial by fire could make or break ASU’s season early, but for Gonzales, all he wants to do is finally get to kickoff and see what his group is made of.

“I haven’t slept much the last two nights because I don’t know what’s going to happen on Saturday. They’re so young, are they gonna freak out when the lights come on?” Gonzales said. “I’m excited for them to play, but I’m nervous to see what they do.”

Bobby Kraus is a football beat writer for the Walter Cronkite Sports Network. You can follow him on Twitter @bobbykraus22