Arizona State Head Coach Herm Edwards
On what pleased him most in today’s win…
“We talked about it at halftime about our third quarter doldrums that we were in last year. We needed to come out and put some points on the board, but also establish the line of scrimmage again. I thought we did a great job in the third quarter taking the ball, running the ball and scoring. That kind of settled us down a little bit, but we were very inconsistent on offense as you can imagine. But here again, we did some pretty good things, we were about 50 percent on third downs. Not too bad, but you would like to be higher than that. (In the) red zone (we did) fairly well. We had the one turnover. We had five fouls in the first half, I believe it was; then the second half we only had one. That’s too many penalties and then defensively, they hit us on a couple runs inside and we blew two coverages, (the) same coverage twice. The running back was running down the sideline (and) no one was covering him. We got a lot of work to do.”
On the defense’s performance…
“Very good. They did a good job on keeping them out of the end zone. Aashari (Crosswell) got beat on the fade and that’s a hard one to cover. For the most part, the tackling wasn't as bad as I imagined it was going to be, we tackled okay. We rallied to the runner and that’s what helped us. A couple times we had them stopped in the backfield, but we had enough guys running to the football where we can get them down to the ground.”
On freshman QB Jayden Daniels’ performance…
“A little inconsistent, a couple of bad reads where he should have ran the ball. Look, he’s a freshman quarterback and I thought for the most part that he did some good things. He ran for a touchdown, he threw a touchdown pass. The one thing I liked about the guy, no matter what was happening during the course of that game, he was always composed, he never lost his composure. Every time he came off, he said ‘I’m okay’ and I said ‘Yeah’ and we would talk, and I said ‘Go over there and talk to (Mike Bercovici) and get on the phone (and) talk to Coach. When you look at his day, he had 284 yards passing, two touchdowns, he threw it 24 times. Now, the sack thing, we got sacked five times. That’s a little daunting there, when you get sacked five times. But then again, they put us in downs where he had to drop back and throw. I thought he did a pretty good job running the ball too, he left the pocket and made some yards running and was a smart runner when he ran.”
On Daniels’ decision making...
“He’s looking to throw the ball when he runs. Now he has the ability to run, but I like the way he slides. Know when the journey is over, slide and just protect yourself, and he did a good job of that. Eno (Benjamin) caught a couple of passes for us out of the backfield when he really wasn’t the main guy. He just found himself in a little seam and he got him the ball. There were some things that we got to do better. First game, you’re always a little bit concerned about the sloppiness of it. We watched that before we played this week in some college games and it just stays true to form. Games are sloppy, you haven’t played tackle football live. When you play live, you see a lot of things. But there are a lot of correctable things and we have to make sure we get those things corrected so we get better.”
On team’s next man up mindset…
“That has a lot to do with the kids, getting an opportunity. In the NFL they always say ‘next man up’ and that’s how it was in a lot of positions. We knew that going in, last night we found out that the kicker (Ruiz) was a little sore and we said ‘He can’t kick’, well whose up? The center gets hurt earlier in the week and we go, ‘Who’s up?’ and that’s the way it works around here. We tell all the guys, you’re one play away from having to play.”
Arizona State Offensive Coordinator Rob Likens
On getting the first win of the season...
“Well it felt good. I’m a perfectionist so I’m not real happy right now, but as a coach you just like to see everything run smooth. But (a win is) always great and winning - I told these guys this today - winning is so hard in college football. You don’t ever overlook a win, especially when we had some stuff happen to our offense this week and our starting center went down and we were struggling with two freshmen up there in the front. To score 30 points, I’m kind of pleased with that, but I need to watch the film before I say too much. But I am very pleased with what (Jayden Daniels) did. He had pressure, he did not have any foolish turnovers, I thought he did very well securing the football and sliding when he had to slide and sometimes taking a sack you just take that sack. He threw a couple of them away (which) we he had to (do), and he did a great job.”
On his concern about the offensive line…
“I knew it was going to be tough. You always try to be positive and all that, but when you have two guys next to each other starting their first game as freshmen, that’s just going to be tough and it’s going to be hard. But I bet they played really hard. They’ll learn from this. They did some things that messed them up, especially in pass protection, and we know they did some exoctic blitzes on third down. I probably could have helped them out with more quick game. We skimmed down the offense a lot coming into this week, so it felt a little trapped up there in the box. Going forward I think you’ll see a big jump, I think they’ll learn from it. I’m sure their nerves were going crazy this week with their first start, so I’m looking for a big jump from this week to next week.”
On the 77-yard touchdown pass to Brandon Aiyuk...
“They were doing some stuff that they haven’t done. They showed a little bit and then they came out and that’s what they ran and so kudos to them. They are basically a 50-front team, but they were running a four-two front cover-one challenging us and we were having a hard time protecting. So I knew that if we could get a screen off and just get one or two blocks off we could be gone and that’s what Brandon (Aiyuk) did. (Daniels) did a great job finding a throwing lane on that particular throw, under duress. Got a different arm slot and found my man Brandon. I’m just glad the hawk didn’t come out tonight to catch him. From upstairs in the booth, he (looked) close man, I’m glad he put those afterburners on.”
On giving Ethan Long a couple plays at quarterback...
“He comes in, our Sparky package. One thing that he can do, and we didn’t do it tonight, but he’s a quarterback so he can throw it. We can run our whole offense with him back there really. You just have to make sure (Jayden Daniels) doesn’t try to go out for passes like he likes to do in practice. We get on him all the time, he thinks he’s a wide reciever. Ethan, you know he does, he brings a lot of energy. He’s our special teams captain, so when he runs out onto the field, he just brings it. There’s a presence to that kid. He’s a tough runner and I know he can go in there and run between the tackles and get the hard yards.”
Arizona State Quarterback Jayden Daniels
On his first collegiate start…
“It’s a special moment (to) go out there and get my first college win but there’s a lot we have to improve on. We can’t be too content with the win. There’s a lot we have to improve on - myself, the running backs, receivers, the whole offense has to improve on a lot of things. But I thank Coach Likens, the offensive line, Eno and all of them for helping me out to get this win.”
On how it feels being the first ever freshman to start the season at quarterback for ASU...
“I honestly don’t look at those types of things. That’s something that I try not to pay attention to out there. These guys don’t treat me like a freshman, they treat me like I’m an upperclassman so sometimes I forget I’m a freshman. I really don’t pay attention to those types of things, I’m just here to help the team win in any way possible.”
On the possession in the first half with his back to the one yard line…
“We practiced that a lot of times backed up. The coaches do a good job with situational football during practice, so we were prepared for that moment. We knew that if we had the ball we could take a shot no matter what. The mindset is that the defense has to cover all of that grass, so if we were to take a shot and if we complete it, then we’re on to the next play.”
On the difference between playing in practices vs. a game...
“It wasn’t too different. We go up against our defense every day, so as I started getting more comfortable we were always competing. Like I said, (our) secondary is probably one of the best in the Pac-12. They give us good looks, so I know they bring all different kinds of pressure. They run an exotic defense. Coming into the game it’s not like it’s something I haven’t seen in practice.”
On his touchdown pass to Eno Benjamin…
“I was going through my reads, so I was looking at the little slip play to the over, and then I happened to just cut back and I saw Eno (Benjamin) going right there, so I threw the ball and he scored.”
On if he had nerves going into the game…
"Of course. Going out the tunnel I had butterflies, but after the first snap I was fine.”
Arizona State Wide Receiver Brandon Aiyuk
On his performance…
“I could’ve had a better game in the run game. I wanted to get those safeties and I missed them a couple of times. There was a little mishap in the punt return. Otherwise it was a good first game. There’s a lot of stuff we can still clean up, but it was good to go out there and get the first win.”
Arizona State Defensive Back Kobe Williams
On the secondary’s confidence...
(We’re) very confident. That was our mindset coming in, trying to be as great as we want to be. We have to keep improving now every single game and every single day at practice to be where we want to be. We had them a minus-one passing yards for a long time and that’s all we kept talking about. They ended up squeezing some out, but that’s just the game of football. It goes both ways. We just need to keep improving every single game.”
On holding Kent State to a three-and-out on the first drive…
“It was great to get us going and get our confidence going too. We were just trying to capitalize on every mistake their offense made. That’s what we preach every day. Make turnovers to help our offense out and get short fields. If we can do that every single game that’s big for us and big for our offense to help them out. That’s all we’re trying to do every single drive and every single game. Getting turnovers and forcing turnovers like we did today to help our offense out.”
Arizona State Linebacker Khaylan Kearse-Thomas
On the game tempo…
“They go pretty fast. We practiced all we going pretty fast, so once the tempo started going we knew we had to start going. It got real comfortable towards the end.”
Kent State Head Coach Sean Lewis
Opening statement
“Not the result we were looking for but (I’m) really pleased with the way the defense played and the way they battled. They fought for a majority of the game. They really kept us in it. Unbelievable job by the special teams really, taking course of where the field position was taken. We can’t ever start that slow offensively. Too many self-inflicted wounds. Arizona State did a good job executing their game plan and we need to be better offensively, starting with myself."
On why they struggled to pass the ball...
“It was a combination of a lot of things. Obviously to come out and have the ball slip out of your hands and be behind the chains. Playing off-schedule quite a bit. Arizona State did a job at disguising some of their coverages, some things that haven’t shown on tape from year one. So there’s been some growth from year one to year two.”
On the defense’s performance...
“The defense did a fabulous job. Special teams did a good job flipping the field. The defense, with those sudden changes where they held them to field goals, are big-time wins. You need to seize those opportunities and the offense needs to take advantage of those opportunities. It’s the duty of the offense in those opportunities to inject some life to the sideline and go get points and to make sure the whole family knows that the fight is worth it. We just talked about that and that’s how you know you have a good team. There’ll be nights where the offense is sputtering and the defense needs to hold and hold until the cavalry shows up. Some nights the offense will need to score every time until the defense calm down, and we’ll do that. That’s how you know you have a good family and have the camaraderie to do that and the family will bail each other out in any way.”