Herm Edwards learning how to test ASU players without preseason games

TEMPE, Ariz. — ASU head coach Herm Edwards has found another difference between the NFL and college football.

Without preseason games, he loses four opportunities to see his team prepare live against opposing players. As an NFL coach, he would not only observe new guys, but he watched veterans like Hall of Fame running back Curtis Martin prepare for the season.

Edwards and Martin went through the same routine from 2001 to 2005 as members of the New York Jets.

Martin would ask his coach how many plays he was getting.

“He got two plays in the preseason. Total. Two,” Edwards said. “One was a run when we got it inside the red zone and I told him to score, and the next one was always a pass to the flat. I said run out of bounds. That was it.”

Now, back at the college level, Edwards is figuring out how to watch that action without a true opponent.

Some players are easier to learn than others. For instance, junior wide receiver N’Keal Harry had a headache Saturday, so he was allowed to sit out of practice.

But the first team defense was doing some tackling during 11-on-11 drills, which is something Edwards said he never had his NFL teams do during training camp.

“We just wanted to get more crisp at tackling,” he said.

Through the physical practice, he learned something about an unexpected player.

It wasn’t a defender. It wasn’t even a first-team offensive player.

The first-team defense couldn’t get defensive back-turned-running back Paul Lucas down.

Lucas, a Mountain Pointe alumnus who verbally committed to ASU in 2014, flipped to Oregon State. He played football and ran track for the Beavers in 2015 and 2016 before transferring to ASU and running track and field for the Sun Devils in 2017.

Now, he has walked on to ASU’s football team.

“He was a DB early. Three days ago, he said ‘Coach, I’m really a running back,’” Edwards said. “I said, ‘Really?’ Go play running back.”

Late in practice Saturday, Lucas trucked a defender, electrifying the sideline and earning him extra yards.

He later caught a short pass and lightly juked a defender, allowing himself to gain an extra couple yards as he went down.

“He wanted to go do it, I said go do it,” said Edwards, “He can run, he can run fast.”

There’s two weeks left before ASU’s first game, and Edwards said it normally takes two games of the regular season to figure out exactly who his team is.

“After the second week, you’ve kind of got a feeling who you are, you’ve kind of feel the players, who they are, and you build from there,” Edwards said.

The scout team is going to start practicing with ASU next week.

The Sun Devils are two weeks away from being two weeks away.

Jay Jay Wilson suspended

Senior linebacker Jay Jay Wilson was suspended from the team indefinitely, Edwards confirmed Saturday.

“(It’s) a team-related situation, he’s been removed from activities until I decide to bring him back,” Edwards said.

Harry’s headache gives other receivers an opportunity Saturday

With Harry out nursing the headache, receivers like juniors Kyle Williams and Brandon Aiyuk got more looks at practice.

Williams, often facing linebacker Nick Ralston, got some short- and medium-length targets from quarterback Manny Wilkins, while Aiyuk seems to be establishing himself as a long-ball target.

In drills prior to 11-on-11 play, he ran routes toward the back of the end zone. And in the 11-on-11 drill, Wilkins tested him with a long throw to the same spot, but cornerback Chase Lucas defended it well and forced an incompletion.

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