Here is what the Sun Devils are saying as they prepare for West Virginia.
Arizona State head coach Kenny Dillingham on what he admires about West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez: “The one thing that I admire about him is that his team plays really hard. They play tough, physical, and they know who they are. They have a mindset and a way to play the game that is attacking, being physical and aggressive, and I think that starts with him and every team you've ever watched him coach. I think anytime that you're a coach and other people can say your teams play hard and physical, I think that's a win, and I think his teams do that.”
Offensive coordinator Marcus Arroyo on team chemistry: “Yeah, I think anytime you get guys who are close on and off the field, they've got that inherent kind of ability to communicate effectively and know where guys are going to be at, just like any of us are around buddies or played in sports, while you get that chemistry together and you kind of know where guys are at. You trust how they move, where they're going to be, and you kind of work for each other in a way that we're all trying to create.”
Dillingham on Jeff Sims taking pressure off Raleek Brown in the run game: “Anytime you can be a plus one run game, you look at their run game on offense, they utilize their quarterback in the run game, whether it's direct runs or inverted reads or traditional zone reads. I think it definitely alleviates and allows you to have a plus-one run, and that's why Coach Rodriguez has always won games because he's dedicated to the plus-one run game. I think for us we're trying to take a little bit of that element here towards the end of the year and add that for us. How much of that, I think that's going to change game by game, gameplan by gameplan, depends on what defenses are doing against us.”
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Dillingham on the team rallying around Jeff Sims: Yeah, our team loves Jeff. Jeff's a great person. I joke like a man of the people. Like, guys just love him.”
Redshirt senior quarterback Jeff Sims on his Iowa State performance: “I mean, it's still a lot of stuff to clean up. We left a lot of stuff on the field. I don't really pay attention to the highs, really. I just pay attention to what I can fix.”
Redshirt junior running back Raleek Brown on Sims' ability to run the ball: “It's been working good. We both can run the ball. So, it's a double threat back there. Jeff’s running the ball like a running back, too. Teams are going to have to respect it.”
Redshirt senior offensive lineman Josh Atkins on the change of quarterback: “It's a different quarterback, so it's a little bit different style of play and whatnot, but we all love Jeff. He's our boy. So, it's a little different, maybe on different teams where the connection's not as strong with one guy, the other, but everyone on the team is family. So, they said Sam was down, Jeff's playing, everybody's like, ‘All right, let's roll.’ Like, cool. Coaches opened up the playbook more for him and gave him more leeway, gave him more trust in him, more confidence in him, and he had more confidence in himself.”
Dillingham on the progression of the offensive line after adjusting to injuries: “I thought they had a good game last week. I thought they played really well. They didn’t allow any sacks and ran the ball effectively, so I’d say that was their best game. We’ve been playing about seven guys on the line, which I think is a positive. Ideally, you want to rotate seven or eight linemen, in my opinion. One of those guys was out, so we were down to around seven. When you talk about playing clean football, all those moving pieces make it challenging, but I was proud of the guys who stepped in and found a way to win.”
Defensive coordinator Brian Ward on the defense coming after the bye: “They came back with fresh legs. Sometimes you just need to hit reset. And then you give them, and really, we say it was a week off, but they still worked out. But in terms of football, they took a break. I thought that it was great because you can see the energy that we came out with our practice today and yesterday.”
Dillingham on his assessment of the defense: “I think we’re playing good defense. There are times when we’re giving up explosive plays that hurt us, and we’re getting too many penalties on third downs that extend drives and lead to conversions. But overall, I’ve been happy with how our defense is playing; they’re flying around and competing. I thought last week they answered the bell multiple times, and we’ve got to keep building off that and continue improving as we head into the rest of the season.
Senior linebacker Keyshaun Elliott on not practicing in the bye: “Football, in terms of a linebacker, I always say it's like a golf swing. If you don't practice your golf swing every day, you're going to lose it. In terms of translating that to football, if you're playing linebacker, do your footwork every day or at least every other day, you're going to lose that. So, it's good to get back out here and, you know, flush all those bad things out of us and get everything moving again.”
Ward on the West Virginia offense: “They're playing at a much higher level. Yeah, they're executing at a much better rate than they did early, and what they've done is they've made adjustments to wrinkles that teams that have given them issues. And you can see that they're just getting back to basics and fundamentals. And so you see, like their offensive game plan and their program philosophy is just kind of it's kind of coming together. They want to run 80-plus plays. They want to run the football 50 plus times a game. They want to be efficient, not get off schedule on first and 10. They want to get to third and short and fourth and short.”
Sims on the potential rain on Saturday: “It's good. You just got to go out there and play football. That's the beauty of it. Probably newer cleats. Can't wear no worn down cleat. You're going to be out there slipping.”