Pac 12 Football Media Day: Arizona State Sun Devils

By David LaRose

The Pac 12 football media provides the opportunity for teams to present their plans and hopes for the upcoming season. For the Arizona State Sun Devils it’s a way to present their new head coach to the media and gauge his feelings before he embarks on his first season in Tempe. Todd Graham was accompanied by running back Cameron Marshall and linebacker Brandon Magee at the Gibson Ampitheater in Universal City, California.

Here’s video of their press conference on Tuesday:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrY7MhY7DCc&hd=1

What we learned:

1) Installing Graham’s new system make take some time.

Whenever a new coach comes in, it takes some time to implement their system and that’s certainly the case for Graham. He stated in the press conference that he has to be patient with installing his system and that they can’t try to do too much right away. It starts with getting good at a few things before trying to install multiple things. Year one will always be difficult under a new coach and ASU will be no exception as they try to quickly pick up on Graham’s new system.

2) Marhsall will benefit from the new power, inside-zone offense.

Part of a new coach coming in is learning their offense and the way that they want to do things. For running back Cameron Marshall, he’s embracing the new offensive style because it caters best to his style of play. Marshall is a big physical back that likes to run between the tackles and this offense suits him perfectly. He’ll be running downhill the majority of the plays and he plans to benefit the most from the new offense. After losing Brock Osweiler to the NFL, Marshall seems to be their most talented offensive player and the offense will focus around the senior back.

3) The quarterback race will be three deep.

Mike Bercovici has a slight edge in the quarterback battle with sophomore Taylor Kelly and redshirt- freshmen Michael Eubank but Graham said that it will be a three-man race this fall to replace Osweiler. The new coach isn’t above using a two-quarterback system, as he briefly used at Tulsa in 2008, but he wants to have one guy emerge and be that leader and take the reins of the offense. It’s very important in a coach’s first season to have confidence in their starter under center and they need to make sure that the player can manage the offense effectively.

Arizona State is in a bit of a transition period, not only due to their coaching situation but their entire football program. They had high expectations last season but fell hard down the stretch after a strong start. Expectations are reverse this year as they are predicted to finish near the bottom of the South division. Fall camp starts in a little under two weeks with ASU having a lot to prove to their fans that last year was just a stepping stone to something better.

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