Defensive coordinators have a lot of schematic and strategic tricks up their sleeves for attempting to deal with the Washington State Cougars’ Air Raid, and it appears Arizona State Sun Devils defensive coordinator Danny Gonzales is relying on a couple of old tropes to try and motivate his group in advance of Saturday’s showdown in Tempe.
When asked about the keys to defending the Cougs, he said:
“Assignments and effort. If they’re flying around and they’re mean and nasty and physical, and they want to try and hurt somebody every time a receiver catches the ball, and we got nine or 10 of them trying to kill that dude, I mean, literally trying to just run him into the ground, then all of a sudden, balls start rolling on the ground, and they don’t want to catch it and run.