TEMPE — Arizona State defensive coordinator Brian Ward said his unit played “lights out” for 60 plays at Mississippi State, but three big plays were the difference in the loss last Saturday.
The Bulldogs’ three touchdowns came on passes of 48, 47 and 58 yards, respectively. Aside from the busts, ASU held Mississippi State to 192 total yards of offense.
“There were 60 plays in that game where we played lights out defense, but we constantly remind our guys it’s not about being occasionally great. It’s about being consistently good,” Ward said on Tuesday. “Being good on defense is about the body of work.
“You can’t play eight bad plays — and five of those plays weren’t very good, but we didn’t have to pay the ultimate price (of a touchdown) for them … I go back to the drawing board and I first look at myself and how can I make sure that situation doesn’t happen again.”
RELATED STORIES
It wasn’t as big of a problem in the season-opening win against NAU, but there were still four passes of at least 20 yards in that contest.
Ward defines explosive plays as runs of at least 12 yards or passes of at least 16 yards. His goal is to keep opponents’ explosive plays under nine total per game.
“Our first game, they were at seven. We met our goal, but that’s not where we want to be at,” Ward said. “We gave up four explosives against Mississippi State, but three went for touchdowns.”
Arizona State facing an explosive Texas State offense
Texas State will come into Saturday’s matchup against ASU at Mountain America Stadium with 12 touchdowns over its first two games (47.5 points per game), and half the scores would fall into Ward’s definition of explosives.
It also boasts 5-foot-11 wide receiver Beau Sparks, the nation’s leader in receiving touchdowns (five). He scored four times in the first three quarters of Texas State’s season. No other receiver in the country has more than three touchdowns, a group that includes ASU’s Jordyn Tyson.
Sparks is complemented by returning running back Lincoln Pare (averaging 119 yards per game) and redshirt freshman quarterback Brad Jackson (five touchdowns to one interception).
“They do a lot of good things offensively, schematically,” Arizona State head coach Kenny Dillingham said on Tuesday. “This quarterback is a really, really good player. … He’s athletic, he can throw the ball down the field.
“He made a play last week where he … launched the thing 55 yards on a dot to a dude who runs 10.4 (100-meter dash), walk-off touchdown essentially. Their explosive play rate’s through the roof.”
Texas State head coach GJ Kinne was complimentary of how Dillingham and Ward take away an offense’s strengths.
“They’re not gonna wholesale change, that’s just not who they are. But little details within the scheme you could see are geared towards their opponent, and that’s a sign of a good coach,” Kinne said. “When they do blitz you, they usually hit home and they scheme that up as well. So we have to have a great blitz plan and have a great week of preparation.”
One of the things ASU will have to account for is Texas State’s willingness to run Jackson on first downs and how that throws off the math for ASU. He has 22 rushes for 82 yards and two touchdowns to begin his first season as a starter.
“Everything has to be treated different. You have to have a plan for that,” said Dillingham. “So we’re preparing for a plan for a plus-one run game. We have pretty good run defense and their most explosive runs are majority plus-one runs.
“Their running back’s really good too, though. I mean, he doesn’t get tackled negatively ever. He always gains yards. So we gotta be able to limit explosive plays.”
And the Sun Devils (1-1) would be wise to get the issue with explosives squared away this week, as an even more potent Baylor offense awaits them on the road in Week 4.
Catch ASU-Texas State on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. MST on the Arizona Sports app, ESPN 620 AM or 98.7 FM HD-2. It will be televised on TNT.
from Arizona Sports https://ift.tt/VUE7RdM
0 comments:
Post a Comment