(Photo: Grace Monos/WCSN)
TEMPE – One of Arizona State football’s newest prizes, rising redshirt sophomore quarterback Cutter Boley, stood in shotgun formation, ready to take a red zone snap.
Flanked wide to his right was one of his most dangerous weapons, 6-foot-5 rising redshirt junior wide receiver transfer via Boston College, Reed Harris.
Directly in front of Harris, however, wasn’t another new face to the program; it was a now third-year Sun Devil in the form of rising redshirt sophomore cornerback Rodney Bimage Jr., patiently waiting for the opportunity to make the talented duo’s life as difficult as possible.
Bimage succeeded.
As Boley took the snap and scanned the field, he made the decision to throw in the direction of Harris, who was embarking on a corner route. The only problem was that Bimage was glued to his assignment, blanketing Harris.
When the ball arrived, the 6-foot corner leaped in between it and the receiver, sending the pigskin toward the ground and breaking up the would-be touchdown pass.
The sequence might’ve taken place during a relatively inconsequential recent spring practice at the Bill Kajikawa Practice Fields – some 163 days before the Sun Devils open their gates to welcome Morgan State – but plays like that, alongside growing leadership qualities, make Bimage a candidate to be “the guy,” as head coach Kenny Dillingham put it, in a post-Keith Abney II CB group that features only one other returner and six newcomers.
“As a person, you just see the maturity level,” ASU defensive coordinator Brian Ward said. “He’s taken the attitude that this is his time to show what he can do. The opportunity is now for Rodney.”
It’s not as if Bimage hasn’t already made an impact with the Sun Devils; if anything, it’s the glimpses that he’s shown that paint the picture of a potentially bright future.
The Houston native appeared in five games across the regular season and postseason in his first year wearing maroon and gold, retaining redshirt status. He made his biggest impact that season on one of the sport’s biggest stages, forcing two incompletions in ASU’s 45-19 Big 12 Championship victory over Iowa State.
He parlayed that success into a rotational role behind Abney and redshirt junior corner Javan Robinson as a redshirt freshman, recording some of the most impressive stats in the country in 10 appearances and one start.
Bimage allowed just 35.7% of passes in his direction to result in completions, which was the 11th-best mark in the nation. His 4.4 yards allowed per reception was the third lowest among FBS corners who had played 100 snaps through Week 12 of the season. And his 0.21 yards per coverage snap was the second lowest among FBS corners with at least 100 snaps throughout the season.
“Last year I felt pretty good,” Bimage said. “All the things I worked on during the offseason, got stronger, faster and then brought into last year, just being a technician on the field.”
Unfortunately, Bimage’s campaign was cut short.
During the third quarter of the Sun Devils Week 12 matchup against West Virginia, Bimage went for a tackle on sophomore running back Cyncir Bowers, and while bringing the Mountaineer to the ground, the left side of his head and neck, as well as his left shoulder, awkwardly made contact with Bowers leg.
The hit was enough to leave Bimage lying motionless on the Bermuda grass of Mountain America Stadium.
The stretcher came out, and his teammates surrounded him. Eventually, Bimage managed to get to his feet and walk off the field with the assistance of ASU staffers.
“It was pretty scary, but I bounced back,” Bimage said. “(I) did a lot of rehab on my shoulder, got stronger. At first, it was weak; I couldn’t lift my arm up, but then, just going in the training room every morning and getting my arm back together.”
It was a necessity for Bimage to bounce back strong, not just for himself, but for the team as a whole, with the top of last year’s cornerback depth chart no longer in the picture – Abney, a PFSN First Team All-American, is heading to the NFL draft, while Robinson transferred to Wisconsin, where he figures to be the face of the CB room.
Bimage brings continuity to the squad, and with rising sophomore Joseph Smith, who recorded just one tackle across seven games last season, as the only other returning corner, the expectations are on him to continue growing and take advantage of the holes left behind.
He isn’t quite a lock to be CB1, especially with rising junior LSU transfer Ashton Stamps looking impressive as well, but Abney believes that his former teammate has everything he needs to become a star.
“That’s the person I got to be with every day,” Abney said at the NFL Combine. “To see the work he puts in, see the talent and the intangibles that he has. I feel like he has everything to be an elite corner in the college level.”
Some around the program have seen flashes of Abney’s prediction. Stamps, who’s only known Bimage for a number of months to this point but has seen plenty of high-level football in the SEC, is among them.
The transfer has watched Bimage’s tape from last year – shown to the CB group by new senior defensive assistant Demetrice “Coach Meat” Martin, who’s worked heavily with the corners and has experience developing players such as New England Patriots star corner Christian Gonzalez – and has been able to compare it to what he’s seen with his own eyes on the practice fields during spring camp.
“Just by me being in football, you could see he’s different,” Stamps said. “He’s more confident, more technical, he’s starting to understand the game more. He’s athletic, he’s very athletic, so I’m willing to see what he will do this year.
As Bimage continues to grow as a player, he’s also growing as a leader, showing the ropes to the new faces on and off the field, as he embraces the role that comes with being the most experienced player in the system.
“He’s welcomed me very well since I first came out here,” Stamps said. “Understanding he’s been here, so he knows how the program moves with workouts, meetings and stuff like that. … He’s been doing a good job keeping us right.”
Bimage has made an effort to help the younger members of the room adjust to the college game and help the new members of his corps understand concepts. He’s also one of the first to meet his teammates when they make a big play, celebrating them as if he were the one to get the job done.
It’s all part of being more vocal, something that he’s been consciously making an effort to do.
“(It) started off during training,” Bimage said. “Just being the first guy up in sprints and telling them (the secondary), ‘come on, y’all, we got to work. We got to keep working.’”
Bimage has grown into a leader and impact player as ASU has grown to national relevance.
When he committed to the school in the desert in June of 2023, ASU was coming off a 3-9 campaign and Dillingham, then the youngest head coach in the FBS, was preparing for his first season at the helm.
Dillingham’s then-cornerbacks coach, Bryan Carrington, who’s now an assistant head coach and defensive passing game coordinator, was able to convince Bimage to take a shot on Tempe. In his first year on campus, Bimage and his teammates lifted the Big 12 Championship, and while last season didn’t go as smoothly, he helped prove that the Sun Devils are sticking around.
How Bimage’s growth continues during the season could have an impact on ASU’s continued growth as a whole, but with how he’s progressed thus far, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that he fits snugly into the shoes left behind.
“When you look at Keith Abney and what’s down the pipe for him this next month, I mean, Rodney sees the proof in the pudding, and now it’s his turn at bat,” Carrington said. “The sky’s the limit for him, but now is the opportunity to perform and showcase what he can do for us.”
