ASU football

ing a scholarship, (his) level of play. What’s so tough is I know he had played his best three games going into this last game. He has the heart of a champion.”

Entering Saturday’s contest against rival Arizona, this presents a problem for ASU’s defensive backfield, which already is short-handed. In Week 2, the Sun Devils lost sophomore starter Armand Perry to an ankle injury. Freshman Kareem Orr replaced Perry, but last week he suffered an unspecified injury in practice that sidelined him for the Washington contest.

Graham said Monday he expects everyone besides Simone to be ready for UA, but even so, there’s a chance that ASU may have to go with two relatively inexperienced safeties against the Wildcats. Sophomore Chad Adams last week started in place of Orr at free safety, but moved to the bandit position when Simone went down. Sophomore James Johnson played free safety the rest of the contest, posting five tackles and forcing a fumble.

Complicating matters: ASU’s pass defense ranks statistically as one of the worst in the country. The Sun Devils give up 297.7 passing yards per game, which ranks 121st out of 128 teams.

“It’s really a next-man-up attitude,” Bercovici said. “You can go from Pop Warner to the NFL. There’s people that are going to go down. What’s great about this program is that everybody prepares at a championship level.”