ASU’s Todd Graham: ‘This is the best offensive team I’ve been around’
Jul 31, 2014, 4:13 PM | Updated: 4:13 pm
The Arizona State Sun Devils’ offense was prolific in 2013.
The Pac-12 South champs averaged 39.7 points per contest — good for 10th in the nation and tied for fifth-most in ASU history. The Sun Devils topped the 50-point mark in six of their 14 games.
Their head coach thinks the offense will be even better this season.
Todd Graham, whose team begins fall practice Friday in Tempe, is very excited about his team lighting up the scoreboard in 2014.
“In all my years of coaching, this is the best offensive football team I’ve ever been around,” Graham told Doug and Wolf Thursday morning on Arizona Sports 98.7 FM.
That claim is not one to be glossed over. Graham was the head coach at Tulsa when the Golden Hurricanes led the nation in total offense in 2007 and 2008.
“The reason why I’m so excited, everybody talks about the dynamic players and that starts with your quarterback,” Graham said. “We are going to be the most explosive we’ve ever been up front. We’re stronger, we’re bigger, we’re faster which means we’re going to be able to run the football better — we’re a run/play-action pass team.
“But if we take care of the football and we don’t have negative plays, which is exactly what the mission was last year, we’re going to score points.”
Points came in bunches for the Sun Devils last season. In fact, ASU led the Pac-12 in scoring during conference games, averaging a whopping 44.2 points per contest.
Graham also believes the youngsters on this year’s roster will provide a dynamic that ASU fans haven’t seen in quite some time.
“Many of these young freshmen coming in, a lot of them are going to have to play, but we’ve got a lot of team speed,” he said. “I really believe this team is faster than the team was last year and that’s really going to help us in the kicking game. Our kickers have really had a great spring, I think we’re going to be the best we’ve been in special teams.”
