UCLA Football Preview: After Firing Edwards, ASU Looks to Shaun Aguano
UCLA Football Preview: After Firing Edwards, ASU Looks to Shaun Aguano
Before joining Edwards' staff, Aguano was the head coach of one of the best programs in the State of Arizona.
On September 18th, Arizona State University finally put the Herm Edwards Experiment out of its misery. Sure, it lasted long — much longer — than most people thought possible. When Edwards was hired just eight days after the Bruins hired Chip Kelly, the conventional wisdom was that Sun Devil AD Ray Anderson had made a mistake with the hire.
Ironically, Edwards left ASU with a better record than Chip Kelly over the same time period. It’s safe to say that the Arizona State recruiting scandal left Edwards on thin ice and, when the Sun Devils lost two of their first three games, his fate was sealed.
But Anderson may have one-upped former Southern Cal AD Pat Haden, who fired Lane Kiffin on the tarmac. Anderson may have actually fired Edwards in the end zone while he was walking off the field.
So, who did Anderson turn to to replace Edwards?
No, it wasn’t former Cincinnati Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis, who is a Special Assistant to the Head Coach. Nor was it Super Bowl champion and former Baltimore Ravens head coach Brian Billick who is now serving as an offensive analyst and Advisor to the Head Coach.
Instead, Anderson opted to name Shaun Aguano the interim head coach.
Aguano came to ASU as a position coach after leading Chandler High School to a 63-8 mark over five seasons. Bruin fans will remember that two of the best Bruins of the Mora era came from Chandler High: Brett Hundley and Paul Perkins. While Aguano wasn’t the head coach at Chandler back then, he was the team’s offensive coordinator. So, Aguano is a guy who coached two NFL Bruins in high school. That’s impressive, even if he has become a college head coach in an unconventional way.
So far, the Sun Devils have gone 2-3 under Aguano, but there is significant support for Aguano to be given the job on a permanent basis. The Arizona Football Coaches Association sent a letter to the ASU administration in support of Aguano.
After last season, both offensive coordinator Zak Hill and defensive coordinator Antonio Pierce resigned in the aftermath of the ASU recruiting scandal. As a result, the Sun Devils have a pair of new coordinators this season.
Glenn Thomas, the former offensive coordinator at UNLV, Baylor, and Temple, was hired in January as part of the house cleaning that resulted from the recruiting scandal. He also previously served as the quarterbacks coach of the Atlanta Falcons from 2012 to 2014. It’s interesting that, after following Matt Rhule from Temple to Baylor, Thomas didn’t also join Rhule with the Carolina Panthers, especially given Thomas’ NFL experience, but he didn’t. Instead, he went to UNLV and, two years later, he is now running the Sun Devil offense.
The Sun Devils new defensive coordinator has been with the school for a few years. Donnie Henderson was originally brought on as a “consultant,” but was promoted to coach the defensive backs on an interim basis after the team’s previous DB coach was placed on leave as part of the recruiting scandal. Then, in February of this year, Henderson was promoted again. This time, he was made the team’s defensive coordinator. It is the same position that Henderson held under Edwards with the New York Jets, who were horrific under Edwards.
Despite being cronies with Edwards, Henderson has pointed out several differences about the Sun Devils under Aguano compared to them under Edwards.
Now, will that be enough of a difference when Aguano and his staff host Chip Kelly and the Bruins? Well, I won’t say never, mostly because Aguano got the Sun Devils past the same Washington Huskies team that Kelly and UCLA had beaten just eight days before.
Let’s look at the Sun Devil special teams.
Special Teams
Freshman kicker Carter Brown won the starting job over redshirt freshman Jace Feely, son of former NFL kicker Jay Feely. This season, Brown has made 9 of 11 field goal attempts including a long of 53 yards. His only two misses came against Oklahoma State from 48 yards and Stanford from 42 yards.
Eddie Czaplicki has been the Sun Devils punter for all but one of the team’s punts this season. The sophomore from Charlotte, North Carolina has punted a total of 34 times and is averaging 45.12 yards per punt. His longest punt of the year was a 75-yarder against Oklahoma State. Ten of his punts have gone for more than 50 yards while nine have landed inside the 20-yard line. Eight of his kicks have been fair caught and only three have gone into the end zone for a touchback.
Czaplicki has also handled most of the team’s kickoff duties. 22 of his 40 kickoffs have gone into the end zone for a touchback, but he is averaging 62.4 yards per kickoff. So, a lot of his kickoffs have been shorter than the 65 yards needed to result in a touchback. That should give UCLA’s Kazmeir Allen and Keegan Jones some nice return yardage on Saturday night.
Defensive back DJ Taylor and wide receiver Javen Jacobs have split most of the punt return duties for the Sun Devils. Taylor has returned seven punts while Jacobs has taken five. Neither of these guys has returned a punt for more than 16 yards and they both are averaging less than 4.3 yards per return. So, don’t expect a whole lot from them return-wise when UCLA’s offense stalls and the Bruins punt.
In contrast, the Sun Devils are more dangerous when it comes to returning kickoffs. Taylor and Jacobs have combined to return eleven of ASU’s 23 kickoff returns and Taylor has seven of the duo’s eleven. While Taylor’s longest kickoff return is 28 yards, Jacobs, in just four returns, managed to break one for 47 yards. That one return raised Jacobs’ average by almost seven yards to 26.25 yards per return.
Danyel Ngata has taken the team’s other twelve kickoff returns. Ngata’s longest return went for 58 yards and, as a result of that return, his average stands at 23.75 yards per return. When you take that big one out, Ngata is averaging 20.64 yards per return on his other eleven returns.
So, between Ngata and Jacobs, Arizona State has two return men capable of busting it for a big return following a kickoff.
Go Bruins!!!
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