(Tempe, AZ) On having depth in the running back room and the pressure it takes off Leavitt:
“Obviously you always love to be balanced. I think Sam (Leavitt) is a high learner, so even though he’s a freshman in there, I don’t think we tailored the plan to say, ‘hey, let’s protect him.’ We threw the first time we had an open field. We had the ball in the plus 38 which you can’t really take too many shots, but the first time we had an opportunity to throw it deep with him, in the second possession, we shucked it deep and he threw a great ball. We’re not playing scared with him. Moral of the story, we’re going to be aggressive with him. The flow of the game really didn’t dictate that we had to throw the ball downfield a lot, but the plan was to throw the ball downfield a lot. Just the flow of the game is going to control what you actually call. And I think Coach Arroyo called a great game just playing with the flow. I didn’t think we were going to be able to run the ball at that high of a percentage.”
On the helmet communication:
“I thought it (communication) was really good. I thought both sides of the ball did a really good job communicating. I harped on not talking too much. There’s a balance, the kids still have to play football. They can’t be hearing you talk when the ball snaps. So, give them vital pieces of information. If there’s something important, say it in a concise manner. I think one thing that helps us, is that the people who get talked to are talked to by their specific position coach. It’s not a coordinator who coaches DB’s, talking to a linebacker, or a linebacker who is a DC, talking to a DB. The verbiage is extremely streamlined and that was something I wanted to make sure we did, is making sure the person whose headsets on is talking to their actual position coach on both sides of the ball. That way, there’s no lapse in communication. I thought it was smooth.”
On his additions to initial impressions after rewatching the game:
“I thought you could see that the guys played hard, with a passion. We could see a lot of little things… We played a really, really good game. We played one of the better first games I’ve been a part of personally. But even through all that, we misaligned, we have a punt PBR that we’re trying to do something specific and our guy aligns a half yard too wide which allows their guy to release faster and it ruins our entire punt return. There are shields turning too much in the punt return game and if I’m Mississippi State, I’m going to try to block it. They watch the same film I watch, I would try to block it too because the little things are wrong on offense. Sometimes our splits are wrong. We missed a few MDM blocks. There’s so many things to get better at. In the meeting, I told the guys, ‘I’ll give you your flowers and then I’ll tell you the mistakes that I made and then let’s go fix the mistakes that we made as a team and let’s move on.’ We beat a team, we should win. We have some talent on our team when we beat a team that we should have beaten and don’t get caught up in it. Let’s move on.”
On the win backing up what the coaching staff has been preaching:
“Our guys have given such great effort. I know I keep harping on that, but with such great effort and practice like they’re really trying to do what we ask, which is hard for a team with a lot of new guys to buy in. But the buy-in from the leadership council has really transferred over to our football team… It’s easier to buy in when you see success. It’s really hard to buy in when you don’t have that success. I think it was big for our guys to see that playing really hard and physical and all these hard practices and the fact that a practice workload is a 570 and our game was a 465 and (when) we practice harder than a game is, all that stuff actually makes sense. It’s harder to sell that vision unless you have that success. I think the first week showed what it can be. Nobody signed up to play one game. If we work that hard for one game, I’m in the wrong deal. We worked too hard to play one game. So, can we respond to that? Can we continue that level of work ethic and that level of passion? That word: passion. Our kids are passionate. Does that passion die because we played well or does that passion just get stronger and stronger and stronger?”
On refocusing for Mississippi State:
“We’ve never beaten an SEC school. We’ve never won an SEC game. I think that’s one. We have a chance to do something that the school has never done. Two, regardless of people, the same people who are talking about how we played really well, are the same people that picked us dead last. Three, you’re never as good as you think you are and you’re never as bad as you think you are. So, get off your high horse. Success in our program is being the very best at whatever you’re currently doing at the time. Let’s go be successful again this week. And that’s the message, that’s the vision and this is a really good football team. We’re about to play Coach Levy who is one of the best offensive minds in college football. He brought over a special teams coordinator from New Mexico State. That guy was a part of the best season New Mexico State has had in a long time. They brought over a defensive coordinator who was trained by Nick Saban and even though he’s never called defense, he’s from that pedigree. So when you’re talking Levy, who is from the Lane Kiffin tree, an offensive defensive coordinator who is from the defensive Nick Saban tree, and you’re talking about a guy who was just at New Mexico State as their other coordinator. You’re talking about a really well coached football team in year one that just won by 60 points. I don’t care who they play, you beat the Kenny Dillingham’s of Scottsdale Arizona by 60 points, that’s impressive. We have a tough team against us.”
On the confidence improving from last season:
“I think the minimum standard for what it looks like is higher. Whether people like it or not, you see Cam (Skattebo) on the first kickoff, sprinting down the field full speed, pancakes somebody and runs them over. Right next to him, we’re running down the field, and somebody else pancakes, somebody runs them over. Their guy pushes our guy back on the first play and we walk away and it’s right then and there that, you know you have them. Two plays later, (Malik) McClain is in the same spot, Skattebo runs down the field, they get a personal foul. It’s not an accident that that happens. It’s when you play the game violently, when you play the game with aggression, when you play the game hard, consistently, some people can only respond outside of the framework of the game. That’s when you know, you have somebody. From the first kickoff, when Skattebo made the impression that we’re going to play our best players and they’re going to set a mindset that this is the next 60 minutes. It puts a little bit of ‘woah’ and we want to continue to do that.”
On his decision to give Keona Peat a carry:
“He’s done a great job for our program. Him and his family are really important to ASU and ASU athletics. His brother is a high school coach out here. Awesome guy. Their family is born and raised here. He’s one of the family members who chose to stay in the state here, which is pretty cool. So, we got an opportunity to hand him the ball and have a little excitement for the family being a local kid here and it was great, I think he got zero yards. So that’s positive for us. Zero for zero is not bad for a center.”
On if he noticed any tangible differences having tablets on the sidelines:
“Oh 100%. I think I said it after the game. It’s 3D chess now instead of chess. If you’re reacting to what you’re seeing on the tape, you’re a step behind because they see it too. And now more than ever, you’ve got to know what their counterpunch is before they counter. Otherwise you’re a step behind. If you call your entire game off the tablet, you’re a series behind on both sides of the ball. So you have to know what they see and how they attack what they see. And it’s 3D chess more than it was in the past when you don’t know if they saw that you brought a three in loop game away from the back and that’s the guy who made the play and they’re confused and their offensive guard says one thing, and their center says another, you can run it again. When they see it, they can coach it and they have an answer. That’s when you better be ready to counter punch before they give an answer.”
On the student attendance having an effect on the players:
“100% (it did). I think it’s really cool. I think Arizona State has over 40,000 new students this year. I believe 17,000 of those people are true freshmen. I think it was a record 9,000, something like that. A record for in-state student enrollment at Arizona State. So I think all of those things and the excitement with Graham (Rossini) and the athletic department, what they’re doing to hype up is a huge advantage for our guys. Our guys run down the kickoff and we defer and we get to run down to the student section and they have to start on their own 25 yard line and that student section is roaring. It’s an unbelievable feeling, and that’s the challenge for our guys, for the students is, ‘you’re a part of this’ and we want to break the (student attendance) record. I want to have more students that have ever been at a game. I want you guys to be a part of the first time Arizona State has ever won an SEC game. Come be a part of history. Let’s pack it out. From the fans, to the students, to everything, and let’s make this the best environment in college football this week.”
On seeing Jake Smith and Xavion Alford play for the first time in 1000 days:
“They both played well. I think the leadership of Xavion (Alford) shows up. He gave our motivational speech pregame. He’s way better than I am. So we’ll probably stick with that as long as he’s got more speeches in him. The way he carries himself is something that I’ve been around a few times, but it’s very rare the leadership style that he has, and the command he has. And then Jake (Smith), I told Coach Arroyo, I wanted him to touch the ball in the first four plays. I wanted him to get his feet wet and he caught a screen. If he catches that same screen today, I think he scores. He got a little excited, but the way that he could just go and naturally pick it back up and play was awesome. I gave them both game balls because they’re the definition of battling and adversity 1,000 days without playing and just working. So those guys were two of the guys that got the game ball.”
On what he’s seen from Blake Shapen and how he’ll scheme on Saturday:
“Obviously that system is super quarterback driven. He came from a drastically different system. So this is a big change for him in terms of the style of play, and the freedom they give their quarterback. They play at such a high tempo, very similar to the Rams with Jared Goff back in their Super Bowl year. They get up on the ball so fast. They’re going to have 15 seconds to talk to the quarterback, 20 seconds sometimes for Coach (Jeff) Lebby, to play quarterback in his ear. Even though it’s game two in the system, they’re going to be able to see our defense. They’re going to be able to communicate, and have a conversation with Coach Lebby and then Coach Lebby can help get into good plays or not. This is the first time I think he’s been in the system, where I know, that’s this free. And I think you can see how much success he had in this first week because it’s free and I think it fits his style. He’s a plus athlete. He can make all the throws. So, I think the combination of him and Coach Lebby are why they put up 60-something points.”
On what he’s learned from coaching in the SEC and if the style of play can be taught at ASU:
“I think it’s just that they’re smaller towns. So, what do you do on Saturday? There’s not many distractions other than college football and I think that culture is why the kids play so passionately down there. There’s a lot of passion in their play because that’s what everybody talks about. Nobody’s talking about the Diamondbacks, nobody’s talking about the Suns, nobody’s talking about the Cardinals. It’s Mississippi State Bulldog football. It’s go time. You are the celebrity, you are everything. You go to a restaurant, they know your name. So I think that’s the difference. There’s more pressure because of that in the south on kids, and not in a bad way. And then there’s a lot of people who are very passionate about their football because it’s what you do in the South at that time of year. I think that’s what we’re trying to build here. I think Tempe, Arizona had that. I think there was a time where this was what you did. You came to ASU football games on Saturday, that’s what you did. Saturday is ASU football. And I think with the student section, we’re going to break the record this week. We’re going to do it. If I have to enroll 12 other people to break it, they’re going to break it. I think that’s the culture that we want to bring back here is: it’s so fun to be at an ASU football game, the excitement that our players feed off of it and that they know it matters. So I would say that’s what we’re striving for here.”
On what he took from coaching in the SEC:
“Everybody’s so in. It’s not like people just show up on Saturday and are excited. It’s like everybody’s in all the time, 24/7. It is all about sport. It’s all about football. It’s all about that season. It’s all about basketball. It’s the athletes there, the school there is the community and when you think of Tempe, I think of Arizona State. That is that, right? And I think we can create that here even though we’re in a big city because this wasn’t always this big of a city, not too long ago. So that’s what I took from it. It’s just the passion that people have about their teams. It matters. It ruins their Saturday, absolutely ruins their Saturday. And I think that’s the pressure that I want to eventually have here. I want to build a team that people expect to win and that’s going to take some time. But that’s the expectation I want to have here is a standard where people aren’t ok if you don’t win football games.”
On if he’s surprised with the cohesion of the defense:
“No. It was kind of what I anticipated from that perspective. It communicated well. The people who communicated well, communicated well. The guys who have good game film from their prior schools, played better in games. So, not really. We didn’t face any adversity, and that’s really what I’m hoping we get. We need somebody to beat us and catch a home run post. We need somebody to run over our linebacker or somebody to miss a tackle. We need somebody to blow a coverage. I want to see how our guys respond to that. Until we have adversity that somebody beats us, and a mistake by us and see our guys respond, I truly won’t know where we are. I know we’re talented. I know we have the ability, but the ability to respond is still a big question mark in my mind. The ability to trust in big moments is still a question mark in my mind that we haven’t had answered yet. So those are the two things that I’m still waiting to see. Hopefully they never happen, but let’s be real, they’re gonna happen. I just hope it’s one play, not 12, that it affects.”
On Sam Leavitt’s first career start:
“(He) played well. (He) played poised. One sack I’d like to have him not take the end of the first half sack. Understanding that, you know, we’re trying to win the middle eight there, and we don’t need to take sacks. Just throw it away. Throw at the feet of somebody. We’ll run the ball, kick, field goal, go into half. Let’s not make this field goal any longer. Other than that, he extended plays well. He knew when to use his legs. He had good pocket awareness. He got smoked and got up a couple of times. On a naked bootleg they just took him out… and he got up and smiled. His brother was a safety in the NFL for a while, so he has a little bit of that in him. I think he kind of likes it. I told him, ‘I don’t want you to get hit,’ but he kind of likes it a little bit. But I think that toughness is part of the reason why he’s here today.”
On former Sun Devil Ricky Pearsall:
“Sad, that’s the thought. I reached out to him. He hasn’t gotten back to me yet. Probably doesn’t have my number saved, but I recruited him to Oregon when I was there. Unbelievable kid, unbelievable family. Obviously from here, (he’s) a local kid. It’s awesome to see local kids succeed and the success that he’s had in his career here and at Florida, and now he’s in the National Football League. And for that to happen, it’s sad, but, I mean, it’s just a lesson to everybody that don’t take things for granted. He’ll be back. He’s a tough kid. He didn’t get to where he was being under recruited, and turned that into being a first round draft pick by quitting. So, I don’t know him that well, but I know kids that are wired that way usually respond at a high level, and that’s what I expect from him, even though I really don’t know him.”
On his expectations with a first-year play caller for Mississippi State’s defense:
“All year we prepared for it. Odd weak-side overhang/four down in the off season, because that’s the Nick Saban simulated pressure is really popular in that tree. So we were prepared for that. We heard some D lineman went out, so we’re like, ‘okay, that fits the odd weak overhang world.’ They have a lot of linebackers, so this makes sense. And then they come out in their odd five techniques, three high safety, which is the only thing that that coaching tree hasn’t been in… To me, I’m not going to get carried away in the one game of film.. I know the identity of the coordinators where they come from, and if you can be an odd five technique team and move a linebacker down to defensive end, when you’re in four down, then you can easily be an odd four eye team and make that same linebacker a weak side overhang. So we face so much four down in practice with our defense, and our defense blitz is more than green grass that we don’t need to see much four down. So, we just have to prep for odd weak overhang, odd three-high safety, mix in some four down looks. But we’ve been seeing that for a while. Four to five defense, so we’ve got to really prepare for the odd three-high safety, the odd weak overhang. And I think that’s the majority of what we’re going to see.”
On Jason Brown Jr. providing 4th-quarter spark in “monotonous” point in game:
“I hope it wasn’t monotonous for our players, maybe for the fans. I still lose my mind because it doesn’t turn off. At the end of the game when they drive down the field and score at the end– Well, yeah, none of our starters’ defense were in the huddle to start the drive. They were all there talking to each other, and then they get mad that they gave up a score. Yeah, well, y’all weren’t in the huddle with them like they were with you the entire game. So they lost their energy. That’s on you guys as much as on them. But with Jason Brown’s conversation, he ran hard, and I said it in one of the scrimmages after a scrimmage, his balance is what impresses me. When you’re a running back that plays with that pad level or that height and that weight, you have to play behind your pads, and you’ve got to have great balance in order to be good. I think you saw both those things out of him, and it was a spark plug for our guys. It did get them excited if it did get monotonous, but if that’s monotonous, I love monotony.”
On finding the balance in gameplanning for Mississippi State:
“You always have to find the best plan for both… You have to find ways to fit your scheme that best attacks what they do, and every good offensive scheme has ways to attack things naturally. You’ve got to be able to attack them in ways that they know how we’re going to attack them. If you’re going to do certain things offensively and attack certain ways, they’re going to know it. It’s how you do what you do, and then mix in new ways to attack a team that they haven’t seen that’s a little bit different, because they know how you’re going to attack them. Most good defensive coordinators will study you enough to know that. It’s how you out-execute your identity plays that you’re running versus their scheme, and what you feel like is an advantage that they know you’re going to do. What other plays do you add that are a little bit outside your scheme that keep them off balance? If you can keep them off balance with the new things, it distracts them from what you want to do. I think that’s the key to running a good offense is having enough balance from new stuff and old stuff that they know what you want to do, but they know they still have to stop this because you can just run it four plays in a row if they don’t. I think that’s kind of the cat and mouse game, and I think Coach Arroyo did a really good job of that last week overall.”
On the secondary’s performance against Wyoming:
“I think what I was most impressed with was how well we tackled. We’ve had a physical camp. I’ve been in there and I challenged the corners a few times and the DBs a few times… I challenged our guys because there was a point in camp where I would (cut splits). You have a 170 pound corner and a 180 pound corner. I’d cut splits at MDM and I’d run on corners, good luck. I think those guys showed up and they played physical. I think that response throughout camp, that they took the challenge and it showed up on game day is pretty cool. We did play physical at corner. There are three or four plays in the game that’s like, ‘whoa, that’s a corner?’ Like I said going into the Wyoming game, their identity is play smart and play tough. And I said, that’s the identity we need to have and that’s the identity that I keep talking about. I think we showed those two things from an identity standpoint and hopefully that’s our identity now, and hopefully we can continue to build on that identity week in and week out.”
On how often he thinks getting out coached happens in college football:
“It happens. I don’t want to say how many times, but there are definitely people who put their players in really, really advantageous positions. There are definitely coaches who do a really good job of creating numbers leveraging grass. And then there are some people that say ‘we’re going to out execute, and we run these things and it’s about execution.’ I want to give my guys as big of an advantage as I can, so I definitely think it does happen. Does it happen as much as people say? Probably not. Players win games. And like I tell our guys, effort wins games. If you’re smart and you just play really, really, really, really, really hard and then you don’t turn it over, you’re going to win pretty much every game you’re supposed to. If you play that hard, every single play, you’re hard to beat. It doesn’t matter what you call. Utah is one of the simplest defenses in college football and they’re the best almost every year. Why? Because they play so hard, and then they know how to compliment certain things. They know their weakness and they know how to fix it. They just play really hard over and over again and they play smart. And I think if we can continue to build that identity of, ‘yeah, we’re going to play aggressive, we’re going to scheme you and have great schemes,’ but I don’t want our identity to be we trick you. I want our identity to be that we hit you, and that’s two different thought processes.”
On Bobby Hurley and Willie Bloomquist attending the Wyoming game:
“Yeah it was really cool. I don’t know if Coach Hurley was there to watch us. He may have been, and I hope he enjoyed the game, but like I said, I can’t comment on recruiting. I don’t know why he was there. I don’t know if he was there to watch us. And then Coach Bloomquist, I mean, as an alum, he sent me a text before the game. He’s fired up. We’re both trying to do the same thing. We’re both trying to bring our programs back as alumni to be as successful as possible and make the state proud, make the school, and the alumni proud.”
Press Release courtesy of Sun Devil Athletics – Doug Tammaro
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