Interview by Justin with the defensive back that missed a god portion of spring but has enjoyed a solid fall camp.

The Speak of the Devils season preview special gets your ready for this critical 2016 season. Brad Denny and Joe Healey are joined in studio by Hod Rabino of DevilsDigest.com and Ralph Amsden of Rivals.com.

The in-depth discussion hits several key points, including the impact of expectations, positions battles, breakout candidates, areas of strength and weakness, the impact of newcomers, and more.

Finally, it's time for a set-it-in-stone (for now) season preview version of the Sun Devil Stock Report, where the group buys or sells several key points surrounding how this season will take shape.

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The senior's gradual improvement ever since his freshman year has been very noticeable. Here's Fabian's story.

ASU's head coach discusses the true freshman in the two-deep and more

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Some of you may have seen this article from Ted Miller mocking ASU for a misspelled sign asking construction workers to not take a break and view last Saturday's scrimmage at SDS, let alone take photos, film, etc.

What happened was that HUNT Construction was being proactive with educating their staff on what not to do during the scrimmage, and thus created the signs to place around the stadium to their subcontractors, and that is appreciated by ASU. More than anything, they didn't want productivity to be affected during the scrimmage.

Unfortunately, the signs did have spelling errors, but ASU had nothing to do with them. Sure, ESPN was just having fun mocking a university of higher learning for a spelling error, but that is inaccurate reporting. Needless to say, that ASU also values the construction staff that has done a great job in the stadium construction.

Anyway, just wanted to help set the record straight in case anyone saw that article.

TEMPE, Ariz.—Arizona State football senior linebacker Salamo Fiso was selected to the 2016 Watch List for the Rotary Lombardi Award, announced award committee. The annual award, which began in 1970, is presented to the most outstanding lineman in college football.

Fiso, who was also named to the watch list for the Bednarik, Nagurski and Butkus Awards, returns for his final season as the most experienced starter for the Sun Devil defense. He has started 36 games in his career, leading the Sun Devil seniors, and needs 12 starts to match Evan Finkenberg's career record of 48. With 11 starts this season, he would tie Dexter Davis for most starts by a defensive player at ASU. Fiso has made 32 consecutive starts for the Sun Devils, six more than tight end Kody Kohl for the team lead.

In 2016, he ranked 12th in the country in solo tackles (78) and 8th in tackles for loss (20). With 36.5 tackles for loss in his career, Fiso is just 6.5 shy of cracking ASU's all-time top-10 list in the category while his 178 solo tackles put him in a prime spot to challenge Brett Wallerstedt's long-standing career record of 238 from 1989-92.

The players gained a position on the preliminary watch list by earning All-American honors, being named to their respective all-conference teams, or by receiving 2016 pre-season honors.

The 47th Annual Rotary Lombardi Award continues the evolvement of the Lombardi legacy by now expanding the eligibility of the award to all player positions that are outstanding performers and exhibit great leadership attributes. Following the preliminary watch list, a nomination period will open to the internal selection committee to add additional players who meet the skill and leadership standards set forth for the Rotary Lombardi Award.
The award ceremony date will be announced later in the football season along with updated lists of award candidates. Visit www.rotarylombardiaward.org for more information and continued updates.

2016 Sun Devil Award Watch Lists
Maxwell Award (America's College Player of the Year) – Demario Richard
Chuck Bednarik Award (College Defensive Player of the Year) – Salamo Fiso
John Mackey Award (Most Outstanding Tight End) – Kody Kohl
Ray Guy Award (Nation's Best Collegiate Punter) – Matt Haack
Lou Groza Award (Nation's Top Placekicker) – Zane Gonzalez
Bronko Nagurski Award (Nation's Defensive Player of the Year) – Salamo Fiso
Outland Trophy (Nation's Most Outstanding Interior Lineman) – Tashon Smallwood
Butkus Award (Nation's Best Linebacker) – Salamo Fiso
Wuerffel Trophy (Exemplary Community Service) – Viliami Moeakiola
Allstate AFCA Good Hands Award (Commitment to Service) – Viliami Moeakiola
Polynesian CFB Player of the Year -- Salamo Fiso, Viliami Moeakiola
Rotary Lombardi Award Watch List – Salamo Fiso

Heard and read a ton about production lost from one year to another this off season and decided to create a series of charts to help me understand what we, ASU Football, are facing.

I started on the Defensive side.

Almost 40% across the board. That happens when you lose the likes of Carrington, Borwn, Longino, and Simone.

On the Rushing side, it was not as much of a drop.



I think we all agree that these numbers will be way up in 2016.

The Receiving bit was interesting.


DJ, Devin Lucien, and Gary Chambers were responsible for 2144 of the 3881 total yds in 2015. TONS of opportunity for what looks to be a strong passing OC scheme.

Thoughts? Other bits of data you'd like to see?

#GoDevils

Here's an article from Adam Gorney. No surprise on who the ASU selection is.

LOCATION: Kajikawa practice fields
ATTIRE: Shells
MEDIA AVAILABILITY: About 25 minutes
EN VERDE (No contact): The only guy I saw in green was Khaylan Thomas. The others were on muscle beach. Here's who I saw: James Johnson (big brace on right knee), George Lea, Tyson Rising, Zane Gonzalez, John O'Brien, Mitchell Fraboni, Grant Martinez
Note: Raymond Epps still has that cast on his right hand, but he was practicing as he has been. Kody Kohl practiced today, but didn't see time in the 11-on-0 team session.

TILLMAN JERSEY: none

As for the gold practice squad jerseys, I didn't notice anyone different from Fabian's practice report yesterday: https://arizonastate.forums.rivals.com/threads/tuesday-practice-report-8-23.16004/#post-137189

I confirmed that freshman WR Kyle Williams was practicing with the DBs. This is an interesting move because he's a freshman and it is less than two weeks before the season. Maybe just a quick look at him there, but there would be no real transition time for him to learn. We'll stay tuned to see what transpires there.


The team started with the tackle circuit and then takeaway drills, but then went into the only team session we saw: An 11-on-0 offense running plays down the field.
Here's how the team's looked...
First team: QB Manny Wilkins, RB Demario Richard, RB Kalen Ballade (ran as slot receiver), WRs Tim White, Cam Smith, N'Keal Harry, Evan Goodman, Sam Jones, Stephon McCray, Quinn Bailey, Zach Robertson
Second team: QB Brady White, RB Nick Ralston, WRs Ellis Jefferson/Jalen Harvey/Fred Gammage, TE Raymond Epps, ....most of the line was in gold and the numbers weren't true to roster, but A.J. McCollum played center and Steve Miller was at right guard. I could not catch the other three.

Interesting to note that no TE ran in the first team. ASU started off with a jet sweep to Ballage and continued from there.

The last session we saw was special teams. Matt Haack and Michael Sleep-Dalton got reps. It was just a directional kicking drill.

After the special teams session, media was kicked out, unfortunately.

Looks like he is leaving Michigan State. Academic issues apparently.

http://www.azcentral.com/story/spor...cassius-peat-leaving-michigan-state/89254920/

My interview with Alfred Hollins who really likes ASU but isn't likely to make any decision until the late April signing period.

So this just happened on Facebook. It took me 2 full minutes of staring at it before I could blink. I know we're supposed to be in for a rough season but if that o-line can protect the QB, umm...theres just...Too.Much.Talent. I'm jacked.

Good interview by Fabian with the redshirt freshman who judging by his nickname is having an OK preseason

Not super relevant since ASU misses Stanford, but Shaw announced Ryan Burns as the starter but says Keller Chryst will get playing time in the opener (sounds familiar). A redshirt junior, Burns has attempted one career pass with Stanford.

Link: https://arizonastate.rivals.com/news/pac-12-recruiting-roundup-july

Things are a little crazy right now. U of A leading the country in commits. Colorado with 12 commits in the last 5 weeks and several high level recruits considering Boulder, including Jalen Harris, Greg Rogers and Perry/Bolden...

UCLA having 6 decommits already.

The world is upside-down.

Rushing starts off by discussing J'Marcus Rhodes and goes on to review other players in the group

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The running back discusses his relationship with Kalen Ballage and more

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Todd Graham said today he doesn't have a group of captains in place this season, and could very well just have game captains that are decided based off of that week of practice. Do you think it's a big deal, a little deal or not an issue at all?

Patterson reviews his group's performance in the preseason

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ATTIRE: Helmets and pads
LOCATION: Kajikawa Practice Fields
MEDIA AVAILABILITY: ~ 20 minutes
TILLMAN JERSEY: Nobody
EN VERDE (no contact): LB Khaylan Thomas (brace on his knee), OL Tyson Rising, LS Mitch Fraboni, OL Marshal Nathe, TE Grant Martinez, DB James Johnson (bulky brace on his right knee), DL George Lea, TE Kody Kohl
EN VERDE, PARTICIPANDO: TE Kody Kohl
GUESTS: "Hard Knocks" was there. Well, at least a scout from the LA Rams was there. Unfortunately, my former internship boss and current ESPN Rams writer Alden Gonzalez was not in attendance.

NO TEAM SESSION TODAY.

Of note: ASU broke out its scout team for the first time this season, flooding the field with gold jerseys and maybe indicating some changes in the two-deep. Some of the notables I noticed wearing gold practice team jerseys include: QB Dillon Sterling-Cole (albeit not surprising), RB Jason Lewis, TE Jay Jay Wilson, OL Cohl Cabral (which means walk-on Tyler McClure could be back in the two-deep). I didn't get a great look, but I did notice that, of the freshmen, at least WR N'Keal Harry and DB Robbie Robinson were not given gold jerseys.

Also of note: When the centers broke off to work on snapping, OL Stephon McCray was not with them. He has been working there with the first team for most of fall camp, so that could indicate that he could move to right guard (and replace Quinn Bailey) and have A.J. McCollum take the first-team center reps.

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Defense worked on tackling form during the tackling circuit, because of course, and it also showed one of my favorite things to notice when the practice jerseys come on -- just how much harder guys hit the practice squad guys as opposed to those wearing regular jerseys. DB Marcus Ball absolutely laid someone out, which was probably the hardest hit I had seen in practice during this fall camp.

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As always, let me know if you have any questions, comments, life advice, music suggestions, etc.

Due to scheduled maintenance, the site will be unavailable at 11 pm tonight for about two hours. Thanks for your patience.

Thanks to Ralph who took pictures of the renovated west and north sides of Sun Devil Stadium today

Photo Gallery

They're back.

Click here: https://n.rivals.com/search

Click 'modify' under search filters

choose between

'basic'

'college'

'high school'


Hopefully that helps!

In the mix

Jaylon Johnson at 57
Thomas Graham at 68
Austin Jackson at 81

Outside shot

Joseph Lewis at 21
Jaylon Redd at 98

Link: https://n.rivals.com/prospect_rankings/rivals100/2017