ASU’s Edwards encouraged despite loss
Arizona State coach Herm Edwards lost his first game with the Sun Devils last Saturday at San Diego State, but he believes his team did not lose its passion.
After breaking down film into the morning hours following ASU’s return from San Diego at 3:30 a.m. on Sunday, Edwards was encouraged about how the Sun Devils responded late in the fourth quarter after falling behind 28-14.
ASU scored with 1:40 left, forced a turnover and was a controversial incomplete pass shy of being a yard away from a game-tying touchdown with six seconds left.
“I’m hoping what I saw in the fourth quarter is what we do, if we continue to compete that way,” Edwards said Monday during his weekly press conference. “When you go on the road, you have to bring your own energy.
“In the fourth quarter, we saw the fight. If that’s who we are then we’ve got to be that way in the third quarter, too. It could have been easy to give in to them because it was an ugly game.”
ASU (2-1) heads to Washington (2-1, 1-0 Pac-12) for its conference opener on Saturday. San Diego State rushed for 311 yards last week, so Edwards is concerned about what All-Pac-12 caliber running back Myles Gaskin of Washington can do against his defense this week.
“You’ve got to stop the run,” Edwards said.
“It’s a hard pill to swallow when people are running the ball on you because there’s hardly anything you can do. Unless you can cause a fumble, it becomes a short game and a long afternoon for you defensively while your offense sits over there and watched the clock being bled down.”
Edwards also does not want to leave anything to chance against the Huskies, who were upset last October in Tempe when they were ranked No. 5 nationally.
Edwards defended again Monday why he did not try a short field goal near the end of the second quarter against San Diego State and went for a first down on a fourth-and-1 play that ended with quarterback Manny Wilkins getting sacked.
“That’s why it was so important for us to score as many points as we could before halftime so they had to abandon the run,” Edwards said. “Because the clock was their friend. You’ve got to get it to a game where they’re uncomfortable playing, and we weren’t able to do that.”
