Jared Cohen
It is not rare to see a football player play on both sides of the ball.
That is definitely the case in high school, in Arizona we have seen that with Davon Coleman for ASU and Patrick Peterson for the Cardinals.
But it is extremely rare to see that done at the level that UCLA’s Myles Jack has done it the last two weeks against Arizona and Washington.
“Tremendous athleticism on both sides of the football,” said ASU head coach Todd Graham. “And I mean, impressive as a tailback.”
The amazing part of Jack’s story is that tailback isn’t his number one position. He starts and plays most snaps of the game on defense as a linebacker. In fact, Jack has said that he doesn’t necessarily like running the football and prefers to hit people. But UCLA head coach Jim Mora Jr. can’t deny the success his team has offensively when Jack is in the game.
In the last two weeks, Jack has taken the conference and nation by storm by rushing for 120 yards on just six carries and a 66 yard touchdown against U of A followed by a four touchdown, 59 yard rushing performance against Washington. Not to mentioned in those two games combined, he had 13 total tackles on defense.
And to put an exclamation point on all of that, Myles Jack is just a freshman.
“I’ve never seen a freshman come in and play both ways like that,” Graham mentioned. “I don’t know if I can remember one that’s done that so it’s pretty phenomenal.”
“It speaks volumes to what his conditioning is to be able to do that,” he added.
Though improved over the last few weeks, ASU for the season has struggled against the run and will have to do a great deal to game plan for what Jack can do on offense on top of preparing for him where he will be most, on defense. When Jack isn’t carrying the ball, they still have to worry about threats that hail from Arizona in Chandler high school alums, duel-threat quarterback Brett Hundley and running back Paul Perkins.
Sun Devils and Bruins kick-off from the Rose Bowl in Pasadena Saturday at 5pm.
