“We saw the athletic guys today play athletic and be explosive,” Randolph said. “We think we have some edge guys that can play out in space and right now they are showing it. Carl Bradford is doing a tremendous job, Anthony Jones is doing a good job and adapting well.
“Naturally our guys up front, being a pressure team, guys are doing a great job. Our defensive backs are just trying to keep everything in front of them and not give up big plays. Right now we are showing everything that we can show to the offense and they are doing a good job taking everything in stride and dealing with everything we are doing.”
Johnson has been one of the spring’s standouts as the walk-on linebacker is taking advantage of the increased number of reps he is receiving in recent weeks. Aside from being content with own performance he thought that the linebackers as a whole executed toady’s new scheme quite well despite the natural learning curve.
“We had a couple things that felt a little awkward at first,” Johnson admitted, “but that was because we were going to a different front. Overall I felt good about how we played. I definitely feel that we threw the offense off a little bit because they are so used to seeing a four-man rush.
“It was good to mix it up and the three-man rush gives us a lot of options, and the offense doesn’t know exactly where the pressure is coming from. So I like it.”
In the two remaining spring practices for ASU, we will undoubtedly see more of this alignment and it remains to be seen how both sides of the ball will continue and adjust to the newly introduced scheme.