ASU Football Introduces Herm Edwards as Head Coach

On Monday morning, Arizona State introduced Herm Edwards as the school’s 24th head football coach. Here are some of the topics covered from the morning’s media availability featuring university president Michael Crow, athletic director Ray Anderson and Edwards’ agent Phil De Picciotto.

Ray Anderson said eight days ago – when Todd Graham was fired – there would be some out-of-the-box parameters for the new Arizona State football coach. It was unorthodox parameters for a now unorthodox position. Anderson said the model for successful programs is flawed, and the Sun Devil football program will be approaching the future like a pro team with the coach, athletic director (general manager) and university president (owner) in constant communication as well as others. Anderson named the following who will be working closely with Edwards:

Jean Boyd – Executive Senior Associate AD
Scottie Graham – Senior Associate AD
Marcus Walker – Manager, Player Personnel
Donnie Yantis – Assistant Athletics Director, Recruiting
Tim Cassidy – Senior Associate AD, Football Operations
Kevin Miniefield – Associate Director, Sun Devil Letterwinners
Gabe Cagwin – Senior Associate AD
Frank Ferrara – Senior Associate AD, CFO
Russ Gilio – Manager, Sports Performance Data and Analytics
Don Bocchi – Senior Associate AD
Ken Lanphere – Senior Associate Athletics Director

Anderson compared this football program as a train that was leaving the station. He said there was room for plenty to join at any time, and he also named that conductor.

One of the first things people bring up when talking about Herm Edwards’ return is his time away from coaching. Edwards wanted to address that right away, saying even from a studio, he was coaching and cited one of his coaches as a player who left the profession for a long period of time and returned to success.

 

While Herm Edwards was predominantly an NFL coach and covered that level of football for ESPN, he says he has also tracked college football heavily over the years as well. Mix that with his history with the Under Armour All-American Bowl – head coaching for eight years – and ASU’s new coach feels like he is familiar with current college football prospects.

One of the most interesting settings Anderson set up for this hiring process was the coach selected would seriously consider keeping much of last year’s coaching staff in Tempe for the upcoming season. It seems as though these coaches would be sticking around, and Edwards described how that relationship will be.

 

Edwards also had this fun exchange with Devils Digest.

https://twitter.com/SInow/status/937768107111866369

And his soon to be former colleague had this to say about the move.

Watching Herm’s introductory presser at Arizona State… they have no idea how good they have it now. The best

— trey wingo (@wingoz) December 4, 2017

What’s Next

From December 20-22, there will be an early signing period for football – the first of its kind. The Sun Devils, along with the rest of college football, will use these next 16 days to get their early classes compiled.