When Todd Graham took over the Arizona State football program in late December, he knew the Sun Devils would be a work in progress.
Brock Osweiler, Gerell Robinson and a handful of prominent players left the program for one reason or another leaving Graham and his staff with a clean slate to work with moving forward. The new regime has preached an aggressive, no-nonsense approach to spring workouts. There is plenty of teaching and little wasted time or movements as players are expected to sprint from drill to drill.
To this point, Graham likes what he’s seen.
“I think it’s going well,” Graham told Brad Cesmat Monday on ‘Big Guy on Sports.’ “Our big thing going into camp is we wanted to establish our identity. That’s established by how you do the little things. We’re trying to establish out tempo, out toughness. I think we’ve gotten better every single day this spring.”
Graham applauded the work of his team on and off the field after breaking through the transition period between his staff and the ASU players. The demands are much different than former coach Dennis Erickson’s laid back habits in Tempe.
One of the most intriguing story lines is at quarterback, where a trio of young, untested signal-callers are vying to replace Osweiler who declared for the NFL draft after his junior year last fall. To this point, Graham has been pleased with their progress.
“[Redshirt freshman] Mike Eubanks had a great first scrimmage. He’s a physical specimen,” Graham explained to Cesmat. “Mike Bercovici is really spreading the ball [around] and starting to get a good understanding. Taylor Kelly has probably been the most consistent. We’ve seen good things out of all three of them.”
He said he won’t name a starter until the fall, but hinted he may use multiple quarterbacks during the season depending on the game and situation.
ASU will practice three times this week and twice next leading up to their spring game April 21 at Sun Devil Stadium.
