OPENING STATEMENT:LIVE: Coach @HermEdwards addresses the media prior to Thursday's opener vs. Kent State. https://t.co/4NeObkjrzD
— Sun Devil Football (@ASUFootball) August 26, 2019
“We are a couple days away from playing a game. I think the players are excited. I mentioned to them that this is not the NFL. You have preseason games in the NFL and you can work out a lot of things. It shows up in college games early. There were a couple of games I watched on television - The Florida-Miami game had 281 yards in fouls and 23 fouls. It was sloppy play with the ball on the ground and interceptions. These were things that happened like, missed tackles. I want to say there were 20 missed tackles. I know because I counted them. That is something that you are always concerned with when the season starts. How will you play? How will you react on opening day? We have addressed that with our players, we showed them some clips of certain games and what had transpired during certain games. We will see if they listened. They are going to have to go play. We are going to play with a lot of young players, which we anticipated when we brought them in here. Players are tired of practicing against each other, they want to just go play a game. As coaches, you want to go play a game as well because we will find out a lot about ourselves in the next couple of weeks to see what type of football team we are. From there, we will adjust and go play.”
ON VIBE FROM PLAYERS COMING INTO SEASON AND VIBE COMING FROM COACH EDWARDS:
“As long as I am the coach here, we will always want to compete for the Pac-12 South. That will never change for us, regardless of how many freshman or sophomores are playing. It doesn’t matter. That is the expectation we have. I think our players understand that. The more you watch the young guys play, the better we become as a football team. I have been in this profession for a long time. Opening day is opening day. You do not know what to expect, any coach will tell you that. NFL coaches will say that and I was one of those guys. I was on a staff with a bunch of great NFL head coaches. You just do not know. You assume certain things will happen, but until you get into the heat of the contest, you do not know what will happen. Sideline conduct, how we get plays in on offense, and how we communicate on the sideline are all important parts of it. A lot of these guys have never done that in a college atmosphere. That is the fun part for me. I know my personality. There is nothing that will surprise me. I will not panic. I just coach. I think the players understand that. I hardly ever raise my voice unless I have to holler to someone on the field if I see something. Other than that, I am pretty much in control because it is a chaotic sideline. Somebody has to be in control over there to make sure the players understand that will adjust on the sideline and we will adjust at halftime as well. Those are the big moments of the football game when you come off the field as a unit and how you return. Those are the kinds of things I am looking forward to.”
ON THOUGHTS FROM ARIZONA VS HAWAII MATCHUP:
“You have an idea of how you want to play then, the game gets going another way. You cannot be hardheaded and say it will go this way. If you cannot stop them on defense, then you better start scoring some points. You always have this idea of how you want to play. I think the game will dictate that eventually, then you get into one of those games. It was a high scoring affair. There were over 1100 yards of offense. Fans love that type of stuff. Hawaii had almost 38 minutes of possession time. They (Hawaii) turned the ball over six times and still won the game. It is amazing. Generally, that does not happen. The same thing happened in the Florida-Miami game. Florida ended up winning that game and they turned the ball over four or five times. That is generally not the case, I think what helped Florida is that they got 10 sacks. You do not know. You get into the game and you want to do this. Well, if we cannot stop them, then it is the first to 50. I do not like playing in those games, but we just want to win. Whatever it is going to take to win is what we going to try to do."
ON RELIANCE OF ENO BENJAMIN AND OFFENSIVE LINE TO TAKE PRESSURE OFF QB JAYDEN DANIELS:
“That is why we really wanted to establish that we could run the football last year. We knew that we were going to be in a situation where we were going to play a young quarterback, so that was already thought about when I took this job. I was thinking ahead. As a coach, you always have to think ahead knowing what you are coming back to and how things will change at certain positions. At the same time, defenses are going to stack the box. They are going to put eight guys in the box. They are going to say we will stop Eno and make the freshman quarterback try to beat us. That is what I would do, I would bring pressure. How is he going to react to pressure? How is he going to react to six guys coming at him? What is he going to do with the ball? All those things are going to happen to him and he is going to have to play. He is going to have to deal with it. We will help him, but that is the process of learning how to play quarterback. You cannot tell defenses to not do that because he is a freshman. They are going to do it, they are coming. They are going to storm the castle. They are going to come at him and they will try to stop us from running and get us in some third and longs. They will try to make him hold the ball and make some decisions."
ON NEW ELIGIBILITY RULE FOR PLAYERS:
“Some of those guys are really good players and they are just going to play the whole year. We will be young. The only way to learn how to play is by playing. You are better off for it in the long run when you are trying to build a program. There are some growing pains. You are going to go through them and you hope that you can win games. We will win games with them. That is my mindset. I am not going to make any excuses - you cannot guard against it. There is nothing you can do except not let them play, but that does not do any good so the guys that are available to play will play. If they are a freshman and they play, we will root them on and help them as much as we can."
ON CONCERNS WITH TACKLING IN THE OPENER:
“Tackling is a big concern for all coaches. In the Miami-Florida game, it was 20 (missed tackles) and Arizona-Hawaii was 18. You just miss tackles. In pro football, they miss tackles. If you can just not beat yourself in pro football, then you can win some games early because it is a mess. In the preseason, most veteran guys do not play. They play 30 or 40 snaps, maximum. Pro football players get some preseason games, but college football players do not get any preseason games. They count. So, I think that if you can get through the first few games early to get your sea legs underneath you, that would be good. Tackling and catching the ball is important. Any time the ball is in the air, I am always thinking just catch the ball first. Catch the snap from the center. Don’t miss the handoff. No player goes out there to play bad, it just happens. I do not know if it is nerves, but it is part of football. You can tackle all you want, until it is live against another opponent, you do not really know. That is why I always say that the best way to teach tackling is to know where to miss. If you are going to miss them then hit them on the right side and hope for your defense to be running and clean it up for you. If you miss on the wrong side, it is a big play."
ON CHALLENGES PRESENTED BY KENT STATE’S OFFENSE:
“He (Woody Barrett) makes the unannounced play. He is a powerful runner and he is hard to tackle when he gets into space. They are a team that goes for it on fourth down, I saw one game in which they went for it on fourth and 9 and they were on the minus-30. They did a quarterback draw and he ran 30 yards with it. He took off. When he starts running around, you better contain him and you better plaster the back end of the defense because he will throw it downfield. He has a good arm and they have some good receivers that can go up and catch the ball. That is what they brought in this spring. They throw the ball vertically, they spread you out, they attack the whole football field and they have a short passing game to try to spread you out early. They are a very well-coached football team. They go really fast. We have been working on that all week. We will see how the weather affects both teams because they will want to go fast, but can we hold up and can they hold up. It will be interesting to see."
ON CAUTIONING PLAYERS ABOUT POSSIBLE UPSET:
“I tell them all the time that no matter what conference you play in, you get up for teams. You feel like maybe you were under-recruited or whatever it may be. Players use all kinds of things to motivate them. When you feel like when you are the superior team, which we do not feel like, you have to be on your guard. I told them that these guys are going to come onto this field on Thursday excited to play us. We know it and we will have to withstand that. We cannot lose our composure. Everyone has a mindset of how the game is supposed to look until the ball actually kicks off. How do you deal with it not going the way you thought. That is what we are going to have to make sure our players understand. No matter what happens, you have to play. Just keep playing the game. You play four quarters and at the end, you find out what the score is. Do not have this picture in your mind of what it is supposed to be because generally, you guessed wrong. That is my experience with football."
ON POSSIBLE STARTERS AT GUARD AND TILLMAN SAFETY:
“We will rotate guys in and out of the Tillman safety and guard the same way probably. We will give guys the opportunity to play, so we can solidify some positions. That is where we are at. Eventually, you will want to solidify your offensive line because you want the quarterback to feel comfortable, but we want someone to win the job too. We will have a starter, but another guy will come in and play some. We will figure it out."
ON ANDREW LUCK’S RETIREMENT AND EXHAUSTION FROM PLAYING FOOTBALL:
“His (Andrew Luck) retirement shows you how tough it is. I am a west coast guy. I followed his career at Stanford. He was a fabulous player at Stanford. He put that franchise on his back for about three years. He literally put them on his back and carried them. He has been injured a lot. If you go back and look at his injury history in those seven years, he has been beaten up a bunch. He has to make the right decision for him and his family. I think his wife is expecting their first child. He is emotionally drained, you can almost look and see it in his eyes. He has not practiced since April. He just came off an injury the previous year and got through the season as he played really good again. He has had this bout with injuries. That is a tough league - I get it. I did it for 30 years. Mentally, you have to be tough. I was fortunate to never miss a practice or a start. I feel for those guys because it is a hard profession. It eventually catches up to everybody. It caught up to me. I knew when I watched myself play that I was not that same guy. I was going to let a young guy play. My heart wanted to do it and I probably could have done it, but I was not the same guy. You have to walk away one day or another. He is 29. You never know he could sit out a season, feel better, and come back. You miss watching great players play. This guy was a savant at quarterback. He had a photographic memory. I watched this kid at Stanford and I had no doubt that he was a special player. If you look at him those first three years, he put that team on his back and just carried them all the way. He got beat up, it is his choice. I know fans are upset and I get all that. This man has a family. That is not going to be his occupation for the rest of his life. You do that for a little while in your lifetime and then you move onto your other occupation because it is not an occupation you can do for 30 or 40 years as a football player. I hope he gets well. Maybe he will revisit it in the end and come back because he will be missed. There is no doubt about that."
ON FORMER PLAYERS REACHING OUT FOR ADVICE:
“I leave them alone. I think the experience that they have had here hopefully would give them an understanding of how to deal with the training camp and competition. I am pretty sure it has. Some of the guys have told me that what you told us was true. I told them good and when you come back in the offseason tell our players that. They need to hear that from you guys. What we are trying to get them in position if they have the talent to get there. I am pulling for all of those guys. The last cut will be this week. They used to cut all the time, but now they wait. That is never good for the players when they have a massive cut like that because there are so many guys out there. That hurts the players. It helps the organization because they can hold onto the players as long as they want, but the players prefer, especially the veteran guys, to get cut early. I have had veteran guys come up to me after the first preseason game told me that it does not look like they will be here and asked me if they can be cut because they might get a job somewhere else. It goes both ways."
ON ADVICE TO FRESHMAN QB JADEN DANIELS AND WHAT IT MEANS TO HAVE DILLON STERLING-COLE NOT TRANSFER:
“It says a lot about Dillon. I told Dillon that I appreciate him being a pro and invested in the football team. He (Jaden Daniels) called the developmental guys the day before yesterday and he was leading that group. He told them that this is what we are supposed to do and this is our role because we are all a part of this football team. As far as our quarterback, I just like the guy. I like his personality. He and I feed off of each other. He does not panic. I have not seen him play a game of college football, but just by watching him since he got here in the spring, he does not panic. I cannot wait to see him play. I told him every time you get off the field, come see me because that is how it works. You come see me then you get on the headphones and talk to coach (Rob) Likens. Then, you talk to the coaches on the sideline. He rode over on the cart with me today. We will see when he gets out through that tunnel if he is alright. I will make sure I see him. I will make sure he is not sitting on the bench when he is getting introduced or whatever. I am excited about watching him play to be quite honest."
ON HAVING EXPERIENCE ON BOTH SIDES OF THE BALL:
“I think you can lean on some guys. Offensively and defensively as well. Especially, offensively because that is where you play with the ball more than anything else. We have some receivers that have played last year that are pretty good that are coming back. We cannot put this all on the Quarterback, it is not fair to him. We have to do things to help him offensively. The coaches have done a good job doing some things that we think that he can do well. But, the players have to help him. We cannot get into 1st and 15 and all that silly stuff, we cannot drop a ball when we are open and we cannot do that to this guy. I think the players understand that especially, some senior guys we have on the team. Defensively, it will be interesting to see the secondary. I want to take a look at that. It will be interesting to see what we become. We have a lot of ideas right now, but until you start playing, you do not know what you are yet. We have got some talented guys back there. It will be interesting to see how they play the ball. When the ball is in the air, how do you play the ball? Can we cover? If we can cover, then we can do some things back there to pose problems."
ON WHAT MAKES A SUCCESSFUL SEASON:
“For me, that we are headed in the right direction in that we are recruiting players that are vying for playing time. That is how you get better. A successful season for me is that you have got to win. You want to be in the hunt. We were in the hunt last year. It felt good going down the stretch, we just could not win five in a row. If you were to tell me that we could do that again this year, I would be in. I always want to be in the hunt. I always want to have a chance to win the South. We had an opportunity last year and we just fell a bit short. I am not one of those coaches who says to there team ‘if we win this many games.’ When I say that to a team, I will stop coaching. I will flat out stop coaching. I think you prepare every week to win a football game. That is what it is. I do not care who you play, you should prepare to win a game. I never put a number on it. I will never in my life put a number on how many games you think you should win. I will let other people do that. My job is to prepare them to win one game then, you go try to win the next one and at the end, you count them all up and see where you are. I have always done it that way."
ON TAKEAWAY FROM THE FINAL PLAY FROM ARIZONA VS HAWAII GAME:
“I showed it to the team. There were about six clips from games I showed to the team. That does not take talent. That is what makes this game so great. When you get on the grass, I tell people to always leave it on the grass. You can always live with the consequences, whatever happens, you can live with that. As a player, you want to make a big play. You never know that play will come. I have heard coaches tell me that my entire life. As a player, you say ‘yeah coach, you do not know.’ Well, I stumbled around and made a play. I did not make many in my life, but I made one and they still kind of show it once in a while. That was my mindset. To me, if you have time on the clock, then you keep playing because you never know what will happen. I am the living proof of that because it happened to me. I was on the good side of it, sometimes you are on the bad side of it. I have been on the bad side of it too. I am the last person to ask that question to because you never know which play will change the outcome of the game. That was great play by that kid. That defensive lineman ran too far up the field obviously, but then just kept hustling. It was a great tackle by the DB to get him then, the guy finished him off, so he could not stick the ball in the end zone. It was a great run by the Quarterback. It was just a great play to watch all the things that happened. That is football. Hawaii will remember that. It was just a guy running hard and that is a credit to him and his coaching staff."
ON HAPPINESS FOR MANNY WILKINS IN GREEN BAY:
“I am hoping that he can stick around too. I think that he is in a good place. He has got a great quarterback that can mentor him and a system that fits what he does as well. There are a lot of off-schedule plays in the passing game. Manny is good at that, Manny can do that. I am hoping he sticks around and all of my guys. I know how hard it is. People do not realize that it is a hard league to make. Once you get there, everyone is really good and then you start figuring out that this is interesting. These guys are not Pop Warner players and they cut players that are good football players. There is not enough room. There are 53 spots, a few guys for the practice squad, you kick it off and then you go. It is a great game to be involved in. If you make an NFL roster, I tip my cap to any kid that does it because I know how hard it is because I did it. You do not realize that when you are in college because you think that this is the next step for me then, you get there in training camp and you start questioning how you are going to separate yourself. It is all mental. Everyone physically can run, jump, and catch. It is the guy that keeps hitting the rock every day. You have to be available. If you are not available, you cannot compete. If you cannot compete, you are not on tape. Your tape is your resume if you have nothing on your tape that shows you your resume, then next guy up. That league does not mess around."
ON WHAT INSPIRES COACH ROB LIKENS TO COME IN EVERY DAY:
"I think he is dealing with so many young guys over there. We have a couple of young receivers, we have a running back who has not played a lot and a tight end who is inexperienced. They are going to play. What he (Rob Likens) is trying to do is put them in a position where they can have some success and get them onto the field where there is not much thinking involved and they can just go play. That is what we have got to do. We have got to play a lot of these guys into college football because they have not done it. The speed of it will catch them by surprise. In pro football, it does not catch them by surprise until the season starts. In the preseason, it is college players playing against college players and the backup guys. When the regular-season starts, then the varsity players play. The switch changes. Until you have seen it, you realize how fast those guys go. You may kind of understand in the preseason, but now they are game-planning in the regular season. For college football, a lot of these kids have not played a real football game yet. It is one thing to have a scrimmage. Great, now they are playing against another opponent. How does the speed of the game affect them all of a sudden? If you are a freshman, you are playing against seniors - you are playing against guys that have played for four years of college football. You have no idea how fast they become and how strong they are. They have been in the weight room for four years. You have been in the weight room for three months. It is just different. They have to get used to that."
ON DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PLAYERS MENTALITY FROM NOW TO BACK WHEN COACH EDWARDS PLAYED:
"They look at things because of the world they live in. They gather information from their phone within 10 seconds, but there is a process to anything in life. You have to work at it. You cannot cheat football. You have to practice the game of football and then you have to go play it. You cannot press the button and say I want to do this. You can get the information but, in football, you have to go through the process of what it takes to be a football player. I think when you are young sometimes and you are really talented in high school, you can do some things on the field because you are just the most talented. When you go to college, there are a lot of talented players. Am I willing to put in the time to learn the game because if you do not know the game, it is hard for you to live up to your talent level. You have to process information. It is not just two or three coverages. There is a multitude of things you have to learn now. So, that becomes the process, you cannot skip it and you cannot bypass it. I think that is where some of them struggle with early but, then they figure it out. We have some freshman now who have seen the success of Aashari (Crosswell), (Jermayne) Lole, Merlin (Robertson), and (Darien) Butler and they just automatically think that they will come in here and play like those guys. Wait a minute - there is a price to pay. They did not just line up as freshman. They worked their way into the lineup to get there. That is the difference I think."
ON COMPARISON TO ETHAN LONG:
"He probably reminds me of (John) Lynch. Lynch played quarterback at college. When he went to Stanford, they changed his position to safety. He was a baseball player. He was a dual-athlete. When he went to Tampa, they had him at linebacker until I got there. I moved him to safety. Ethan (Long) is one of those guys who is very athletic, smart, and tough. He can do multiple things. You need a guy like that on offense. You can do a lot of things with the guy. You have to be smart to figure all that stuff out. He was a quarterback and now he is going to either receiver or running back. He can still play quarterback. He can do a lot of things. It takes a guy a lot to process all that. Fullback, tight end, wide receiver, and quarterback. That is a lot of positions to learn for a freshman but, he is a smart kid and a tough guy. I just love the guy. He loves football. He loves the team, he will do anything for the team. It is fun to watch him play. He has a little kid in him all the time. He would run right by me and asked me how I am doing. I have dubbed him Captain America. Everybody knows it now that he is Captain America. He would do anything you ask him to do for this football team, so it will be fun to watch him play too."