Wolves’ Duggan takes look in mirror

JONESBORO — David Duggan didn’t give excuses Monday.

Duggan, the second-year defensive coordinator at Arkansas State Univers i - ty, saw his unit allow

539 yards

Sa t u rd ay in ASU’s

52- 23 loss to Coastal Carolina. At his weekly Monday news conference, he fell on the sword.

“I take responsibility,” Duggan said. “It’s on me.”

The ASU defense showed little resistance against Coastal Carolina, which seemingly did whatever it wanted after the first quarter. The Red Wolves couldn’t get off the field, giving up two back-breaking drives — one in the second quarter that lasted 8:38 and another in the third that was 7:57.

The most glaring issue came on third downs, with Coastal Carolina converting 10 of 17, including two that were 10-plus yards.

“It wasn’t all explosive plays. When you go back and look at it you say, ‘OK, we gave up 52 points — where did they all come from?’ ” Duggan said. “We didn’t do a good job of getting off the field on third down. The game plan was to try and get them in third

down and long. We didn’t have a great plan for third down because we didn’t execute well enough, and that’s on me.”

Duggan said one area where he can personally improve is putting his players in better positions to be successful. He felt as though some of his players — specifically the linebackers — were confused on coverage calls due to their lack of playing time this season.

Seniors Caleb Bonner and Jeffmario Brown as well as junior Derrick Bean hadn’t played since the Memphis game on Sept. 5. And senior Justin Rice, a transfer from Fresno State, has been on the team for only a month and a

half.

“It’s a trust factor. It’s like the same thing I wrestled with after the game. Am I being fair to Justin Rice playing him at two spots?” Duggan said. “He’s not getting the maximum amount of reps that he needs to be successful to execute his assignments where he’s very comfortable. There were times where he came over to the sideline and he was a bit confused on certain coverage drops.

“I’ve got to do a better job of figuring out what exactly is our rotation and who needs to play where, and let’s let them get comfortable and play.”

When asked about the root of the defensive problems, Coach Blake Anderson echoed what Duggan said in terms of confusion. He also added that they lacked speed Saturday, something that wasn’t an issue against Kansas State despite missing five defensive starters.

“There’s a lot of different issues, to be honest with you,” Anderson said. “The longer every drive went, the more fatigue set in.

“We looked slow. We’ve never looked slow here in

seven years. We’ve always been the fastest team on the field. We looked a step slower, and we looked sluggish. We can’t compound that with mental mistakes.”

After the game Saturday, Anderson was quick to point to his team’s effort as the main reason for the poor performance. Monday, it was the same.

But this time he made it a point to acknowledge the toll covid-19 has taken on his team. Having two games and several practices postponed due to covid-19 issues has put his team behind conditioning wise. He didn’t blame Saturday’s loss on the virus or fatigue,

but he said it most certainly played a factor.

The biggest thing he wants his players to do this week is simple: sleep.

“They’re young guys. They want to stay up. That’s the world they live in — they want to be playing PlayStation until 2 in the morning or on social media,” Anderson said. “They’ve got to put those things away and go to sleep. Sleep is the No. 1 recovery tool that your body has, and it’s overlooked.

“Right now with the covid world we’re living in and the fatigue that’s coming out of that, you cannot rob yourself of nutrition and sleep. And I think we’ve done a poor job there. It’s slowing down the recovery process, and it showed on the field Saturday.”

Duggan said he doesn’t

want to blame fatigue for the defense’s performance, though he admits it was definitely noticeable.

His hope is that will change come Saturday against the University of Central Arkansas in Jonesboro. And if it doesn’t, he’ll once again blame only himself.

“Toward the end of the game, we didn’t have any response,” Duggan said. “The energy level, you could see it. It started to get sucked out of us. And that’s the thing that’s discouraging to me was the effort. I didn’t think we had the effort in the second half that we needed to be successful.

“And that’s on me. We’ve got to do a better job at practice. We’ve got to have a great week of preparation this week. It was very disappointing on our end defensively.”

Duggan

Anderson