Edwards wants Devils to be a run-first team

Herm Edwards is always thinking big picture in his first season as Arizona State football coach.

To that end, Edwards said Monday, what the Sun Devils looked like on offense last week against Washington – a run-first team playing ball control in part to help the defense – is what Edwards envisions them being in the future.

“You have to play complementary football,” Edwards said. “Right now we have a young defense. What do you do to help them? You take time off the clock.

“If you can run the ball consistently, to me those are tough football teams. Now you become multi-dimensional. We can dictate the terms of how we want the game played. That’s what we’re going to become. We have to continue to develop things going down the road, and running the ball is going to be part of it.”

ASU had 164 yards rushing in its 2720 loss at No. 11 Washington and just 104 yards passing.

Almost 60 percent of its plays were runs (40 to 27 pass attempts) and the Sun Devils came within 43 seconds of breaking even with the Huskies in time of possession.

Edwards said he initially wanted to leave the offense unchanged for the sake of senior quarterback Manny Wilkins “knowing that we’re eventually going to get to looking like this a little bit more. Now we’ve got an eight-game season, we’ve got to continue to do that because whoever plays quarterback here next year, guess what? He’s going to play in that system.

“It’ll be a system where we can spread them out and throw it as much as we want. But it also has to be a system that if we want to go pound you, we can do that too. That’s how we’re going to look offensively going forward.”

Through the first three games, 73 percent of ASU’s total offense was from passing yardage (958 of 1,304).

The Sun Devils averaged just 1.5 yards rushing against Michigan State and San Diego State, winning the former 16-13 and losing 28-21 to the Aztecs.

After San Diego State, Edwards told his offensive staff including coordinator Rob Likens “here’s the deal” going forward.

“We’ve got great coaches, and they got it done. Let’s move some guys around. It takes players and coaches to buy into that, and I think in the end it will help us in the long run for the program of what our offense wants to look like.

“You have to do things sometimes as a head coach. I make people uncomfortable. I do it in a way where it’s never pointing a finger. I try to make good suggestions.”

Against Washington, ASU made offensive line changes (Zach Robertson to left tackle, Casey Tucker to left guard), used Nick Ralston as a fullback, employed an extra offensive lineman in a jumbo package and played Trelon Smith as backup running back ahead of Isaiah Floyd.

It didn’t quite add up to an upset victory but accomplished what Edwards wanted – keeping a road game against an elite opponent close into the fourth quarter.

“It’s going to be how many possession do you get in the fourth quarter, what do you do with the possessions,” he said. “It just didn’t work out for us.”

Edwards promises, though, he hasn’t forgotten about star wide receiver N’Keal Harry, who had just 20 yards receiving on five catches vs. Washington.

“N’Keal is always in our plans every week,” he said.

“We do our best to try to get him the ball. We’re smart enough to move him around. Sometimes they’re doubling him and you can’t throw it to him. You’ve got to throw it to somebody else.”

That includes running backs, who need to be a bigger part of the pass offense, Edwards said.

Harry had 21 catches for 315 yards and four touchdowns through the first three games, up in the latter two categories over the same span in 2017.

“Manny just wants to win, and N’Keal is the same way,” Edwards said. “I talk to both those guys after every series. But we were running it at 4 yards a clip (vs. Washington). That puts you in a lot of third and shorts so we can continue to move the ball. The players bought in to what we were trying to do to win that game.”