Brian Ward

uh I don't think Colorado wins but again that's good news for Colorado as well if you can go and get on DJ Lagway get past those edge blockers force pressure you can have a good time it closes the the playbook down a little bit it means you can sell out to stop the pass a little bit more you don't have to worry about that as much you can maybe maybe you're not going to do some fun things like you know send Montana Warren in on a nickelback blitz a safety blitz as often because you do know he's just going to have to hand off or pass Trying to defend the throw maybe a little bit more than you otherwise would have.

But, I mean, if DJ Lagway can't move, then this is a Brian Ward that already has a great defense.

Really nice defense setup.

Although, we do need more from Ashton Stamps.

On the edge, which is, again, a little bit surprising to me considering how effective he has been at limited time and just how good of an athlete he is.

Maybe we start to spell him in more if we do have those kind of one-on-one matchups.

It also comes down to scheming, right? Because Brian Ward is very good.

So first of all, there's the bend-on-break setup.

I don't think it's that.

I think Trent coming out of the Arizona State world and – So I think our success did play into Trent getting this opportunity, but it was also Brian Ward, who's the defensive coordinator at Arizona State, being able to pick up the phone and say, hey, this Trent Green's a high riser here.

He's rising fast.

And then it's Trent being able to visit with Coach Wright, be interviewed, whatever you want to say, and really being able to articulate his plan, his vision.

yeah jordan obviously mentioned that the most important part of last week was that we got the win that's for sure true and there's no reason to freak out yet but for asu fans that are getting ahead of themselves and freaking out the biggest plays came from the defense what is the bare minimum that the asu offense has to do to just keep winning

Yeah, I mean, as a defensive guy, I love watching this Brian Ward defense.

Last year, they kind of lost a little bit of that magic, and I'll dive into the offense here, of course, because that's what you asked me about.

But as a defensive guy, I have to touch on defense.

I love this Brian Ward-led defense.

They fly around the field.

Owen Long is the heartbeat of that defense.

But we lose our pipeline.

I don't think we want to get rid of Brian Ward.

Certainly, Brian Ward is, I'm very happy with how our defense has been the last couple years.

Now, I hate protect, and we called protect way too early against Kansas, but I think there was also a coaching decision to say, yeah, our offense is not moving the ball.

We need to just eat the clock.

And we just need to burn as much clock as possible, which I think is fair considering how bad we looked.

So, you know, benefit to the doubt here.

Brian Ward's great, but I look at some of the...

So we've seen these pass rushers pin their ears back.

We've seen Brian Ward get pretty creative this year already.

Let's hope that continues because if you get pressure on this quarterback, there could be some trouble.

Yeah, 100%.

Ward.

I think it's a combination of both because I think BC just gets his players ready, and he just knows how to get the most out of them.

And then Brian Ward is able to... use them in unique ways and cater to their skill sets.

So what's Lyric Earl's good at? Everything.

The peaks and valleys, they're just too high for me right now.

I think Brian Ward will dial it up.

Another game in the Big 12 Conference, but of the non-conference variety.

At least it's being played on American soil.

Arizona State at Kansas minus five and a half.

Kansas has got... defensive issues, and quarterback questions.

That's not a good thing to have when you're going to play a game in London against a coaching staff with Kenny Dillingham, Marcus Arroyo, and Brian Ward that have been doing this for a little while and seem to have Cutter Bowley getting better and better as the season early on, admittedly, has progressed at this point.

So, yeah, I'm taking Arizona State minus five and a half there for sure.

Um, a- and they found themselves in a position to beat some opponents that they realistically weren't given a chance to do.

Uh, but going into this week against an Arizona State defense that since Brian Ward has been here, um, if you remove the 2023 season and you go from 2024 on, this has been a group that has been relatively dominant defensively, right? Like, whether it be against the run, against the pass, I think the one thing that this Sun Devil defense has struggled with over the last two seasons has been taking the football away, right? Turnover luck is a real thing.

They had a lot of turnover luck in 2024, weren't able to take away the football at the same rate in 2025.

And to this point in the season, the Sun Devils only have, what, one turnover, right? You have the INT from Lyric Rawles coming out of halftime last week against A&M.

Like, no, it, it should be frantic and it should be hectic back there for him.

Yeah.

I wanna see him searching for answers in real time, and begin to not trust his protection, and begin to look to run first right into that quarterback spy that Brian Ward will deploy on him.

I need Isaiah Marshall to, by the end of that game on Saturday, I need him to mentally feel like he played a college football game in London against one of the best defenses in the Big 12.