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By BILL SLANE
Cronkite News
TEMPE – Arizona State fans will get their first in-person look at their team since the Sun Devils stumbled out of the gate in Houston with a 38-17 loss to Texas A&M. ASU looks to recover from that defeat with a Saturday matchup with an FCS opponent, the Cal Poly Mustangs.
This will be the first home game since renovations in the south end zone of Sun Devil Stadium added more seats to that end of the field. As part of that seating modification, all students were moved to the lower bowl.
LEADERSHIP SUMMIT: After practice ended head coach Todd Graham gave a longer post-practice speech then he usually does to the team. After they broke up, Graham took his senior captains Mike Bercovici, D.J. Foster, Nick Kelly and Jordan Simone aside and spoke to them privately for an extra 10 minutes.
After the meeting, Graham gave a slight insight into what the conversation was about.
“Just talking about where we’re at,” Graham said. “Talking about leading and all those good things like that. I think there are lots of great lessons to be learned in the game and just talking to them about those lessons. We’re right where we need to be.”
MOVING ON: The team didn’t have much more to say about the loss to Texas A&M last weekend, instead focusing on the games they still have left to play. Simone said the only positive the defense can take away from the loss is that they’re still a team who will win together and lose together. The defense allowed 425 yards of total offense in the 38-17 loss. They surrendered 21 points in the final quarter including 14 with less than four minutes left in the game.
“That game is in the past and you can’t really worry about what happened,” said Simone, who had seven tackles and an interception in the opener. “We’ve just got to move forward and get things corrected. But at the end of the day if we hold them to zero points they can’t win, that’s on the defense and we got to play better.”
Foster, who started his first game at wide receiver after moving out of the backfield, said he thought it was too early to tell how the team is going to respond to the loss, and that they won’t really know until they run onto the field on Saturday.
“I think we’ll come out and have passion and kind of put it behind of us and move forward,” Foster said.
STRAIN DAY: Graham said that Tuesday practices are usually the “strain day” for the team, the day of the practice week where the coaches put the most pressure on the players. The practice this week started outside where the humidity made it uncomfortable, but ended in the practice bubble.
“We just try to challenge them as much as we can,” Graham said. “Their mental maturity is at a different level where it doesn’t seem to bother them. The challenge is for every day to be their best practice ever and followed by the next best practice ever. And so we’re obviously going to be on them everyday to do that.”
GUMP GETS MORE TOUCHES: Redshirt junior running back Gump Hayes, who is behind both Demario Richard and Kalen Ballage on the running back depth chart, has received praise from coaches and teammates this offseason and Mike Bercovici looked for him frequently in the first game. The transfer from Lackawanna College had six catches for 13 yards and carried the ball seven times for six yards in the first game of the season.
With Ballage out indefinitely with a case of mononucleosis, expect to see Hayes get even more touches going forward both at running back and receiver. Hayes says he’s already seen his reps go up with Ballage on the sideline.
“Me and Demario (Richard) will still be rotating in the backfield,” Hayes said. “And I’m still in the slot as well. So we’re rotating but I’m doing more as a receiver as well. We’re just trying to stay in shape to balance that out.”
GUMP’S SPECIAL PREDICTION: If there has been one Achilles’ heel for the Sun Devils under coach Graham, it would be the team’s special teams. Against Texas A&M, ASU gave up a 79-yard punt return for a touchdown to Christian Kirk, a graduate of Scottsdale’s Saguaro High School.
On the other side, ASU averaged just seven yards per return on punts and 16.4 yards per return on kickoffs. Hayes, who returned both kicks and punts in week 1, made a bold prediction regarding the team’s return game against Cal Poly.
“I feel like in this right here we’re just going to come out better detailed, better adjustments and I already know for a fact we’re going to take a couple to the house,” Hayes said. “Definitely looking forward to that. I was so anxious last game but it didn’t happen. But this game I know for sure we’re taking a couple to the house.”
SUN DEVIL STADIUM’S NEW LOOK: Sun Devil Stadium is in the middle of a $256 million, multi-year renovation project. The biggest change for the 2015 season – new seats in the south end zone, part of a move to create a “Double Inferno,” with students split between those seats and seats in the north end zone.
During the team’s practice, ASU’s athletic director Ray Anderson held a press conference about the progress of the renovation project and the fundraising.
Anderson said that the university is more than halfway to its private fundraising goal of $85 million and is very confident that they will be able to reach and exceed that goal over the next two years.
“I’ll put it out there my personal goal is to have the fundraising completed by the end of the 2016 season,” Anderson said. “So when we go into 2017 we will be complete and soaring past that goal.”
