ASU DE Clayton Smith moving to TE to create competition as room awaits Khamari Anderson’s return

TEMPE — Following a poor Tuesday practice from the Arizona State tight ends and offense at large, head coach Kenny Dillingham said Clayton Smith will move to tight end to foster more competition.

Smith has been a key contributor at defensive end for ASU the past three seasons, but he spent spring camp working on offense with the wide receivers and tight ends to set up potential wrinkles in offensive packages.

“We’re going to move Clayton Smith back to tight end starting tomorrow,” Dillingham said. “Challenge some people. We got to create competition. The team is about competition, so Clayton is going to go back in the tight end room for one purpose: create competition.”

The 6-foot-4, 260-pound sixth-year player landed on last year’s Freaks List that The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman puts out ahead of each college football season highlighting the most athletically gifted specimens across the nation.

Smith also played some wide receiver in high school, so offensive work isn’t foreign to him. That showed up in the spring work where he moved and caught the ball very smoothly for someone his size.

A big part of the tight ends’ shortcomings this fall has been starter Khamari Anderson being out with a lower leg injury since the end of spring. Dillingham reiterated Anderson should be cleared at some point during the first three weeks of the regular season.

But you want to see the depth step up when the starter — and a leader at that — goes down, and sophomore A.J. Ia and senior newcomer Anthony Miller have not done so to this point.

Dillingham said he wasn’t concerned with the position’s outlook until Tuesday.

ASU offense has ‘worst day by far’ of fall camp

The head coach was disappointed in how the offense looked as a whole, but noted the “Jekyll and Hyde” element he felt with excitement toward the defense’s performance.

“Today was a bad day for the offense. Worst day by far,” Dillingham said. “We didn’t look like an offense today. Couldn’t move the ball. When we did move the ball, we got penalties. So they got to wake up.

“I told the defense ‘great job.’ … We’re flying around, playing hard. Offense not good enough today at all. It wasn’t just ’cause the defense played well. It’s one thing when you don’t do well because a defense made great one-on-one plays. Like, that’s football, right? … But now there’s critical internal errors on offense. Those are the things that you can’t have.”

It didn’t take long in the practice for it to feel like the most sluggish yet, whether due to it being perhaps the hottest day of camp so far or otherwise.

ASU has also been without wide receivers Omarion Miller and Reed Harris this week due to minor issues, Dillingham said. They should be back soon, but missing those two stars certainly affects the math of the offensive operation.

Heat and injuries will never be acceptable excuses to Dillingham or any other coach for a practice like Tuesday, hence why adding a veteran as familiar with Dillingham’s expectations as Smith could be what that side of the ball needs.

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