Dear Smart Sun Devils,
It’s been a few weeks! I still have work and family obligations, and sometimes those things take precedence over this little hobby I have. Also, I have to admit, I wasn’t super motivated to write after the loss to Utah. This week’s newsletter will be a little different than most. I’m going to mostly skip a recap of the Washington State loss, and instead focus on one aspect of Herm Edwards’ decision-making in the game, then follow that up with some thoughts on the season, including an assessment of the coaching staff’s performance this season, and Herm’s tenure overall. As always, if you like what you’re reading, and haven’t signed up, please hit the subscribe button below:
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Herm’s 4th Down Decision
With 6:19 left in the third quarter and trailing Washington State 28-7, Herm Edwards elected to punt on a 4th and 2 from ASU’s own 44 yard line on Saturday. I immediately thought it was a bad decision, and tweeted such:
A few minutes later, Jared Lee, who created the CFB 4th Down Bot responded with the following:
Here’s the full attachment, for reference, so you don’t have to click through the tweet:
The 4th Down Bot is a model that predicts a team’s probability of winning if they go for it or not in a given 4th down situation. It uses the score of the game, time remaining, yards away from the opponent’s end zone, and yards to make the line to gain, among other things, to make the predictions.
In this case, ASU had an 11% chance of winning (and a 63% chance of converting) if they went for it in this situation as opposed to a 7% chance with a punt. With a win percentage difference of +4, the bot made a STRONG recommendation to go for it. What this means is that the expected outcome of going for it was significantly better than that of a punt. Even a relatively risk-averse coach should be willing to go for it in this situation, as the win percentage of failing to make the first down (5%) is only slightly lower than punting (7%).
In his post-game press conference, Edwards said the following describing his thought process in deciding to punt:
Looking at the time on the clock, and their offense was going, and if you don’t make it there, then you’ve got no shot […] It ended up working out, we ended up getting the ball back and we ended up scoring […] I like to go for it on fourth downs, but there’s certain times in the game where you look at the score, and say ‘if you don’t make this, you have no chance’.
First, Edwards struggles to explain his reasoning in a coherent way; there doesn’t appear to be an underlying philosophy to his decision-making process here. Additionally, he seems singularly focused on the consequences of failing to make the first down, even though the probability of converting the 4th and 2 was pretty high (63% according to the 4th Down Bot). Making an informed decision in this situation involves weighing the costs and benefits of going for it on fourth down, and Edwards appears to be weighing the benefits of punting against only the worst-case scenario of going for it. Moreover, even if we disregard the flawed process, he still doesn’t seem to accurately assess that the downside of not making a first down is not much different than the upside of punting (5% chance of winning vs 7%). Now, I don’t expect a coach to have these exact probabilities in his head while he’s making these decisions, but at this level of football, a head coach should at least have a feel for what they approximately are.
Next, he says that “It ended up working out, we ended up getting the ball back […] and scoring”. I really don’t know what he’s talking about here, as ASU did not end up scoring until three possessions later, with less than five minutes left in the game, and after Washington State had tacked on two additional field goals, making it a four possession margin. It very clearly did not work out, as by the time the Sun Devils scored, the probability of an ASU victory was literally zero. Even if we give Herm the benefit of the doubt, and assume he was just misremembering, the thought process here is, again, severely flawed. When you’re down 21 in the second half, time, yards and possessions are valuable. Even if it “worked out” as Edwards described, the best case scenario (but not the most likely) is that ASU gets the ball back about two minutes later in similar field position to where they punted from, and scores late in the third quarter, still needing to score two touchdowns in the fourth, while holding WSU scoreless, just to tie the game and get to overtime. The more likely scenario is WSU taking several more minutes off the clock, and ASU getting the ball back in worse field position than from where they punted, and possibly doesn’t have an opportunity to score gain until the fourth quarter. The decision to punt just put ASU in a situation where there was a good chance they wouldn’t have enough time or possessions to catch Washington State.
To be clear, I’m not making a big deal about this because I think this was the moment that cost them the game. We’re talking about a decision that could have changed ASU’s probability of winning from very slim to slightly better. I’m using this situation to illustrate that Edwards’ game-management skills are lacking. It’s not just that he’s extremely conservative (he is certainly that, though), it’s that he doesn’t appear to even have a coherent process which he goes through to make fourth down decisions. Coaches have different levels of risk tolerance; some have more than I would prefer, and some have less; but most at least have a philosophy or process that undergirds their decision-making in these types of situations. Herm appears to be just going by his gut, and his gut is wrong.
Mid-Season Thoughts
ASU’s loss to Washington State brings their record to 5-3 overall, and 3-2 in conference. Surprisingly, they’re still ranked 29th in the SP+ rankings, just ahead of Utah at 30th, with Oregon the only PAC-12 team ahead of them at 23rd. All of their remaining opponents are ranked 50th or lower - USC is at 50, Washington is at 59, Oregon State is at 64, and UofA is at 112 - so on paper, ASU has a decent chance to finish 9-3, which is the record I predicted at the beginning of the season, and finish with a conference record of 7-2, which is better than my prediction of 6-3. However, this season has been disappointing, for a handful of reasons.
First, the conference is significantly worse than what was projected at the beginning of the season. USC, who was the favorite to win the South division, has been terrible and fired their head coach, and there’s only one PAC-12 team, Oregon, who is in the top-25 in any of the rankings. If I had known at the beginning of the season how weak the rest of the conference would be, and particularly the South division, I would have projected ASU to finish first, and win 10 or 11 games. This season has been set up perfectly for ASU, with their talent and experience peaking this year, to take advantage and make it to the conference championship game at a minimum.
The nature of the Sun Devils’ losses has added to the disappointment as well. Their losses, and portions of their wins, have been filled with undisciplined play and preventable mistakes. I documented how costly penalties and turnovers were in their loss to BYU, penalties played a big part in their loss at Utah, and an embarrassing number of turnovers cost them the game against Washington State. This is a team with a lot of veteran players that should not be losing games in this manner.
So while on paper ASU has a good chance to win out and have a good season, it just doesn’t seem likely to me that they will, in fact, do so. They’ve just shown too much of a proclivity towards undisciplined and sloppy play for me to be confident that they won’t lose a game that they shouldn’t. At this point, I think their most likely final record is 8-4 (6-3 in conference), followed by 7-5 and then 9-3. Each of these records would be at least somewhat disappointing, with 8-4 being very much so, and 7-5 being an abject failure.
What Should Be Done?
Before we go any further, let’s acknowledge the progress that has been made in the program since Herm took over after the 2017 season. Athletic Director Ray Anderson completely modernized the evaluation and recruiting infrastructure within the program, and a focus was placed on filling the coaching staff with young, talented recruiters. There was also a renewed focus on recruiting California, something that the previous staff had moved away from, and is ASU’s most reliable source of talent. These were changes that needed to be made for ASU to be successful in the long term, and Edwards and especially Anderson should get credit for these developments.
However, Anderson went out on a limb hiring Edwards, his friend and former client who had never coached college football and was not in demand. He climbed even further out on that limb by declaring that ASU should regularly be in the top-15 nationally, and top-3 in the conference. In three-plus seasons, these are benchmarks that Edwards’ teams have not come close to achieving, and with a team full of seniors this year and no 2022 recruiting class to speak of so far (due to the NCAA investigation), it doesn’t look like it’s something that will be achieved in the next few years, either. 2021 was supposed to be the year that the improvements in evaluation and recruiting paid off with results on the field, and also lead to the 2022 class being one of ASU’s best ever. Instead, it’s looking more likely that this season will be pretty average, and that the 2022 recruiting class will be a complete bust.
This leads us to the NCAA investigation. I won’t get into the details of what’s been alleged, as that’s been reported pretty thoroughly elsewhere. As it stands, it looks likely that ASU will face sanctions, possibly pretty severe. The cloud of the investigation has tanked recruiting, and decreases the probability of future success. Three coaches, all key recruiters, have been placed on leave and are unlikely to return. Defensive Coordinator Antonio Pierce has scrubbed his social media of all references to ASU, and is currently not being permitted by the athletic department to recruit off-campus. The chaos caused by the investigation has almost certainly contributed to the team’s underperformance this season, and could continue to do so beyond this season, as the NCAA is notorious for its investigation taking long periods of time.
When Herm was brought on, I was highly critical of the process followed by Anderson to make the hire. Herm had a track record as a mediocre head coach in the NFL, no college experience, and his prior relationship with Anderson had clearly been the key factor in him getting the job. I was skeptical that he had the connections to put together a decent college coaching staff. I did, however, think that Herm was a good man, would be a good mentor to the players, and be a likable face of the team who ran a clean program.
While there were certainly hiccups with some of the initial staff (mostly coaches from Todd Graham’s staff that stayed on), I was pleasantly surprised that by 2020, Herm had put together a coaching staff that not only recruited well, but seemed to have the potential to coach well also. Additionally, the improvements in the evaluation and recruiting infrastructure were starting to pay off on the recruiting trail, and ASU put together a few solid classes. While I was never a fan of Herm’s overly conservative game management style, I was optimistic that the improved talent on the field and the rest of the coaching staff could overcome any deficiencies Herm had, and that the program was on a sustainable path to future success.
This is what makes the alleged recruiting violations so disappointing. The one thing about Herm that I was confident in was his character, and that he was instilling a healthy culture among the players and staff, and was running a clean (or mostly clean; I don’t think any program is perfectly following all NCAA regulations) program. The allegations dispel all that, especially considering that it was a disgruntled staffer who put together the dossier of evidence that was submitted to the NCAA.
What, therefore, should be done? Barring the team suddenly getting its act together and winning out, Herm Edwards should be fired (there’s a strong case to be made that he should be fired even if the team does win out). With this season being a disappointment and the cloud of the NCAA investigation putting a damper on recruiting, likely causing some pretty serious staff turnover, and sanctions on the horizon, it’s pretty clear that Herm will never come close to meeting the expectations set by Ray Anderson. Additionally, since Anderson went so far out on a limb in hiring Herm, he should be let go as well.
I do want to temper expectations, however. Although I think this is what should be done, it’s not necessarily what I think will be done. Herm and Ray Anderson are very close, as are Anderson and ASU president Michael Crow. There would need to be an extraordinary amount of pressure for Anderson to fire Herm, and while it’s possible that it could get to that point and Herm could be gone by season’s end, it’s quite unlikely that Crow would pull the plug on Anderson’s tenure in the near future.
Questions of the Week
What are your thoughts about the current state of the program? Should Herm and/or Ray be fired? How do you think the season will end?
I just now discovered this site so I'm obviously extremely late here, but this is an extremely thoughtful and cogent analysis of both the WSU game and of the program as a whole. Clearly Edwards isn't going anywhere regardless of the way the season ended and how badly recruiting has cratered. And my fear is that given the way Anderson handled the baseball program in keeping Tracy Smith long after he should have been shown the door, it could be another 1 or even 2 more disappointing seasons before Edwards moves on, and who knows what shape football will be in by that point.