Edwards, Arizona State
Schroeder: Rethinking skepticism
Twice this month, Herm Edwards has entered the Arizona State locker room after victories, plopped down on a table and just spent a few minutes watching the celebration.
“This,” he tells himself, “is what I missed about football.”
Arizona State is 2-0. And especially after a 16-13 win last Saturday against then-No. 13 Michigan State, it’s time to ask: What have we missed about Herm Edwards?
From the moment he arrived in Tempe last December, the hiring was almost universally panned around college football. We chuckled at the idea that a 63year-old (he turned 64 in April) who’d been out of coaching for almost 10 years and away from college football for almost 30 years was the right choice for Arizona State. We laughed at the university’s 2,600-word news release announcing not only his hire, but seemingly a complete reinvention of how to run a football program with a “New Leadership Model.”
And by we, I mean me.
Back in May, I spent almost an hour in Edwards’ office, listening to his vision for the Sun Devils’ football program. And for football. And for life.
At times the conversation seemed more like a life hack than an interview; many of Edwards’ words were directed toward my teenage son, who accompanied me on the visit. When we left, my son was pumped. The feeling, we both agreed, was that we would run through a wall for Herm.
But I couldn’t help but wonder: At impact, would the wall give way?
Edwards laughed the other day when I told him about that reaction. During a week when mea culpas have flowed from the keyboards and microphones of college football media from just about everywhere, Edwards has been as gracious as he was during the offseason when the unkind takes were flowing.
“I understand,” he said. “This (hire) is something outside of the box. People don’t generally do things this way. … We all understood when this took place, there were gonna be some people who didn’t agree — and that’s OK. This is America. We can have differences of opinions.
“But we sailed on our journey. We’re trying to build something. And it’s still a work in progress.”
And last Saturday, a well-drilled bunch upset Michigan State. A defense that has been routinely porous over the last few years was instead smothering. And in the final moments, the Sun Devils worked the clock perfectly to set up the winning field goal as time expired. Earlier this week, Edwards said offensive coordinator Rob Likens suggested several plays to run near the goal line, but the head coach had other ideas.
“I said, ‘No, no,’ ” Edwards told reporters. “‘You know what the best play is? Victory.’ ”
He meant having quarterback Manny Wilkins take the snap and kneel, bleeding the clock so Michigan State wouldn’t get the ball back. But maybe there’s an additional layer. Victory is a great play.
And from Edwards’ perspective, what happens immediately afterward, those five minutes he spends watching his team, is even better.
“The joy they have,” he said. “The voices, them hugging, guys screaming. I don’t say a word. I just sit there. I’m like a little kid. I just take it all in. … That’s the joy for me.”
Some of the doubt came from that bloated and clunky initial news release, dressed up in corporate-style jargon. It promised to bring the “NFL approach” to college football. In practice, it’s not all that different than the structure used by other Power Five programs with resources, including the most successful. But it read like a mission critical idea shower out of the home office.
It also stressed retaining the assistant coaches and providing the coordinators with more autonomy, which is why concern grew when both coordinators soon left the program. (It’s apparent now that Edwards’ responses, promoting Likens to offensive coordinator and especially hiring Danny Gonzales as defensive coordinator, were very good moves.)
But most of the skepticism centered on Edwards, who’d been out of coaching for so long and away from the college game for so much longer. Back in May, when he told me that during his extended time away from coaching he was “still coaching, believe it or not. You’re just coaching America” — well, it was a terrific soundbite, but it seemed slightly unmoored from reality.
But Edwards is clearly a motivator. It’s not hard to imagine him as a tremendous recruiter, especially filling the traditional head coach’s role as a closer in an in-home visit. He’s also a detail-oriented football guy. Maybe when he watched those games in ESPN’s green room, he really was, as he told us all during the offseason, picking up on nuances and filing away new thoughts that helped prepare him for a return to coaching.
“I’m too old now to even worry about any of that stuff,” Edwards said of the doubt and criticism. “I kind of know who I am as a man. There’s a value system I believe in. I don’t need validation from people at all. I’ve never had (to have) that. I don’t believe in that. I believe you bet on yourself and you commit to something and you give all your energy and effort to it, and that’s what I’ve done my whole life.”
It’s way too early to predict whether Arizona State will grow into a Pac-12 and national power, which is the school’s stated goal — or even if the Sun Devils will beat a tough San Diego State team on Saturday, which is Edwards’ current focus. But the predictions of comic doom for the program suddenly seem, well, comical.
“We’re not the team we aspire to be, by any stretch of the imagination,” Edwards said. “But our effort, how we play, is what I like most right now. We still make some errors, but when you play with effort and passion, you’re gonna be in football games. You’re gonna have a chance. That’s all you ever ask for is a chance.”
It’s time we consider what we might have missed in Arizona State’s bet on Edwards. Two games into his tenure, it seems there’s a real chance it might pay off.