ASU recruiting class ventures out of usual CA, AZ territory for 2021 class

This year’s early signing day class is a matter of quality over quantity for third-year Arizona State football coach Herm Edwards.

Edwards described the program’s recruiting mindset to members of the media on Wednesday, saying the team’s 10-person early signing day class is centered around a group of players who can plug in and play for the Sun Devils come the fall.

Edwards and co-defensive coordinator Antonio Pierce believe the new cast of players can hit the ground running in Tempe once they arrive to campus on Jan. 11.

“I think when you look at the process of what works, you’re always looking for DNA and what fits, and what are your needs for the most part,” Edwards said. “We went into this this year thinking that we needed to upgrade certain parts of our team. As you can see, length, width, height, speed was a big factor.

“So it’s by no stretch of the imagination over. We felt we really did a good job, our coaching staff led by [Pierce] did a great job of evaluating the type of players that fit our offense and defense.”

The 10-person signing class is made up of:

• Four-star athlete Tommi Hill, four-star Edgewater High School (Orlando, Fla.)
• Four-star wide receiver Lonyatta Alexander, Kenneday Catholic High School (Burien, Wash.)
• Three-star defensive end Eric Gentry, Neumann Goretti High School (Philadelphia)
• Three-star linebacker Jaydon Williams, South Oak Cliff High School (Dallas)
• Three-star quarterback Finn Collins, Bishop Alemany (Mission Hills, Calif.)
• Three-star cornerback Robert Regan, Orange Lutheran High School (Orange, Calif.)
• Three-star defensive end Gharin Stansbury, Franklin High School (Franklin, La.)
• Three-star offensive tackle Isaia Glass, Queen Creek High School (Queen Creek, Ariz.)
• Three-star offensive tackle Austin Barry, John W. North High School (Riverside, Calif.)
• Defensive end Travez Moore, a transfer from LSU who was a four-star recruit in 2018.

Sun Devil recruiting classes are traditionally heavy in Arizona and California. They expanded their territory this year, more than half of the early signing class coming from states other than those two mainstays.

Pierce highlighted that geographic diversity as a way of illustrating how far the ASU football brand has gone outside of the southwest.

“This year, we tried to expand ourselves east of the Mississippi River, again looking for height and length, looking for big bodies,” Pierce said.

“But as you see with this program, we kind of hit every area. I think we’ve done a good job. Obviously our footprint in the state of Arizona, state of California these last few years, really identifying and making this team bigger and faster. Really focused on certain positions.”

Edwards made a point to point out that the Sun Devils’ recruiting class is by no means finished, telling reporters that he hopes to land seven players via the NCAA’s transfer portal in addition to recruits who elected not to commit on early signing day.

He and Pierce have been studying the 72-page book of current college athletes who are seeking to either leave their program or simply get a gauge of what options lie outside their university.

“I think you have to be wise to do that and I think we set ourselves up to delve into that,” Edwards said. “And if not, there will also be some kids that we’re still looking at that didn’t want to sign early that we can sign later.”

For now, Edwards and his staff are focused on adding the right players, particularly along the offensive and defensive lines, to take the Sun Devils where they want to go in the near-distant future.

In his third season as head coach, he emphasized the importance of building up the trenches.

“We’re in the Pac-12 and we realize the opponents that we have to play every year. So that was our mindset, and we didn’t stay in a couple of states,” Edwards said.

“We kind of went all over this year, and that was done with strategy of how we looked at players in certain parts of the country that fit our DNA.”

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