Arizona State has a new star in the secondary and he could be a critical part to the team’s success in 2013.
Lloyd Carrington, a redshirt junior who transferred from Pittsburgh in the fall, played more snaps than any corner during team drills on Tuesday morning.
Carrington took most of his snaps at boundary corner, although he did drop back to play some safety and he also moved inside to the nickel corner spot a few times.
Carrington started Saturday’s spring game and appears to have an opportunity to pass both Rashad Wadood and Robert Nelson, who missed the team portion of practice with an undisclosed injury, on the depth chart.
“It means I’m working hard,” Carrington said. “There are opportunities to play and if I keep working hard, I will get those chances.”
Defensive passing game coordinator Chris Ball has also taken notice of Carrington’s strong play of late.
“He’s had a great last week and a half. I’m glad that people are seeing that because we’ve noticed it too,” Ball said. “He has some size and some speed and he’s really aggressive. He’s adding to the great competition we have at corner.”
The size and aggressiveness are the two things that stand out the most when watching the six-foot, 188-pound Carrington. He is the biggest corner on the team and fits perfectly with what head coach Todd Graham and the Sun Devils want to do.
“I like the aggressiveness of our system,” Carrington said. “It allows me to make plays. We run a lot of different blitz packages and we press a lot, so if you do your job as a corner, big plays will happen.”
On Tuesday, Carrington often rerouted the speedy Rick Smith off the line and then showed a surprising ability to stay with the receiver through the route. Carrington also looked impressive stepping up and stopping the run in Saturday’s Maroon and Gold scrimmage, something that is extremely important for a boundary player.
If Carrington can carry over his impressive finish to spring practice when the Sun Devils suit up again late this summer, ASU could have the best secondary in the Pac-12.
