Upon further review: Todd Graham pleased with spring game
Apr 16, 2013, 11:28 PM
Typically, the spring game signals the end of spring practice.
Not for ASU, at least not this season.
Three days after Saturday’s Sun Devil Football Fan Fest, which attracted more than 6,300 fans to Sun Devil Stadium, players found themselves back on the Kajikawa practice fields Tuesday morning.
“We’re done with the contact portion,” head coach Todd Graham said. “All situational stuff today. We put in our long yardage defensive packages and offensive packages; did extensive work with our two-minute drill on offense and defense.”
Immediately after the scrimmage Saturday, while pleased with his defense, Graham expressed disappointment with the offense’s inability to protect the football.
That didn’t change after he had time to review the film.
“Obviously, I’m not happy with turning the football over,” Graham said.
The Maroon and Gold stats handed out to the media listed two fumbles (one lost) and one interception.
“I don’t like turning the football over,” Graham continued. “We’ve got to eliminate that. We’ve got one goal on offense and that’s not turn the ball over. No negative yardage plays and don’t turn the ball over. That will score a bunch of points.”
The scrimmage didn’t feature much special teams work, but what was done was both positive and negative.
“I wasn’t pleased with our field goal kicking. That was something that wasn’t good,” Graham said. “Really pleased with the punter. (Dom Vizzare) was booming it. For a walk-on punter, we were very, very impressed. He had an outstanding day kicking the football (six punts for 45.3 yard average).”
Defensively, Will Sutton played only 24 snaps “but he played 24 all out,” according to Graham.
The Pac-12 Pat Tillman Defensive Player of the Year was back wearing the PT42 jersey for a second straight practice.
“We’ve got a couple of more guys close to getting (the jersey),” Graham said. “Our goal is, when we come out here in the fall, that we’ve got six or eight guys wearing that every day, then we’ve got a chance.”
The Sun Devils will hold their final spring practice Thursday.
“We’ve put ourselves in a position to compete for a championship,” Graham said. “It’s night and day where we are right now to where we were last year.”
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