Herm Edwards at Arizona State is working (at least so far)
Arizona State’s hiring of Herm Edwards was met with plenty of worthy criticism, but through two games it’s working pretty well.
It was clear Todd Graham needed to be replaced, with six, five and seven wins over the last three seasons. But Arizona State went outside the box to hire Herm Edwards, who hadn’t coached anywhere since the 2008 season and hadn’t coached in college since 1989 at San Jose State. A reference to a “coach as CEO” structure invited criticism, skepticism and some outright laughter.
A 54-74 record as an NFL head coach wouldn’t make anyone an inspiring hire for a school, let alone after nearly a decade as an ESPN analyst and at 64 years old as Edwards is. But the Sun Devils went to 2-0 on the young season with win over No. 15 Michigan State late last Saturday night, and at No. 23 in this week’s AP poll they are ranked for the first time since the preseason poll in 2015.
Three of Arizona State’s next four games are on the road, against San Diego State (Sept. 15), Washington (Sept. 22) and Colorado (Oct. 6), with what should be a lay-up against rebuilding Oregon State at home (Sept. 29) in the midst of that stretch.
A lot will be told about this Sun Devils’ squad in the next several weeks. Extending further into October, Stanford at home on a Thursday night (Oct. 18) and USC on the road (Oct. 27) round out that month. At least from the outside, an above .500 record through eight games might be considered a reasonable expectation.
dark. Next. Ranking college football coaches by cool uncle factor
Edwards will be highly quotable, as always (“leave it on the grass” is a shiny new one), and it was not coincidental ESPN had him mic’ed up last Saturday night. It’s still unclear if the motivational speaker schtick will quickly wear thin with college kids. But over two games, and on the heels of a very good win, the powers that be in Tempe have to be pleased their coaching change is going better than down-state rival Arizona’s.