UCLA Football Preview: Herm Edwards Has Silenced His Critics

Herm Edwards continues to be the biggest surprise hire from two years ago. No one believed that Edwards, who failed in the NFL with the New York Jets and Kansas City Chiefs, would be able to improve on former ASU head coach Todd Graham.

Yet, Edwards had more wins last season than Chip Kelly has in more than a season and a half in Westwood.

This season, he has a new offensive coordinator in Rob Likens. Likens served as the receivers coach for Edwards last season. He previously served as the offensive coordinator at Kansas in 2015 and 2016 and as the Assistant Head Coach at UC Berkeley in 2013 and 2014 when he followed Sonny Dykes there from Louisiana Tech.

Danny Gonzales is in his second season as the Sun Devils defensive coordinator. He previously served as defensive coordinator at San Diego State.

Turning to special teams, Cristian Zendejas will handling the field goal and PAT duties for the Sun Devils. He is 12 of 16 so far this year and perfect inside 30 yards. Josh Plaster has handled most of the kickoff duties this season for ASU. He’s got six touchbacks on 30 kickoffs with an average of 58.6 yards per kickoff.

The UCLA Bruins’ punt returners should be ready to run today as ASU punter Michael Turk only has 13 fair catches on 35 punts and only 19 of them have landed inside the 20.

Brandon Aiyuk is the primary punt and kick returner for the Arizona State Sun Devils. Aiyuk has returned seven punts and seven kickoffs. His longest punt return is 38 yards and his longest kickoff return is 35 yards.

That wraps up our final Arizona State preview.


Go Bruins!!!