ASU’s Xavion Alford played at ‘70%’ at Mississippi State before missing Texas State game

TEMPE — Safety Xavion Alford played around “70%” health in Arizona State’s visit to Mississippi State before he sat out the home win over Texas State, head coach Kenny Dillingham said on Monday.

“I don’t think you can ever replace Xavion,” Dillingham said. “He was First Team All-Big 12, he’s one of the leaders of our football team but he wasn’t playing 100%, and that wasn’t fair to him to fight through and play at 70% like Week 2.

“That just wasn’t fair to him and his future. I want to protect our guys no matter how badly they wanna play. We gotta protect them from themselves because they’re competitors.”

Alford had 85 tackles, two interceptions and five passes defensed to earn All-Big 12 honors in 2024.

Alford had nine tackles and one tackle for loss over the first two games of the season before Adrian “Boogie” Wilson replaced him Saturday against Texas State.

The safety will likely appear on ASU’s first Big 12-mandated availability report on Wednesday.

Those medical updates for all conference games will list players as “probable,” “questionable” and “doubtful.”

The statuses will be public with updates on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights before a final evaluation 90 minutes before kickoff, which will be narrowed down to “available” or “out.”

The timeline will shift one day up the following week when ASU faces TCU on a Friday.

Adrian ‘Boogie’ Wilson filled in for injured Arizona State S Xavion Alford

Wilson, a Washington State transfer, started in place of Alford and finished with seven tackles.

“Boogie went in there and he did an awesome job,” Dillingham said. “He found out he was gonna start Saturday morning. There’s a reason we brought him in. We have a lot of faith in Boogie.”

Wilson received Pro Football Focus’ third-best coverage grade among all Big 12 defenders with at least 35 coverage snaps.

“He’s one of the happiest people I’ve ever met, which is awesome,” Dillingham said. “He went out there and played a really good game. He flew downhill, he made some nice tackles, he had some good ball disruption. So I was really, really happy with how he played.”

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