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TEMPE, Ariz. -- Herm Edwards knows exactly what you're thinking. He's crazy. His boss is crazy. Arizona State is headed for an implosion. He has heard the criticism of his hire: He's been out of coaching too long and doesn't know the college game well enough to succeed, let alone turn a Pac-12 program into a contender.  It's of no concern to Edwards, who was named the new head coach of the Sun Devils in December after a decade away from coaching. He dismisses the notion that his return to coaching is a Power 5 publicity stunt concocted alongside ASU athletic director Ray Anderson, his longtime friend and former agent. "I love the game of football too much, and I owe the game of football too much for me to take a job that I thought I was ill-equipped to handle," Edwards said at a recent Sun Devils spring practice. "I'm well-equipped to handle this by all stretches of the imagination. "I wake up going, 'I'm in my element.' Every time I come in here, I realize how much I missed it. [College players are] clay. They're hopeful. They have energy, they have aspirations." "He's a teacher, man," Anderson said of Edwards. "He wanted to put the whistle back on and get out on the grass." The first lesson came bright and early on the fourth day of spring practice. At 8:15 a.m., Edwards literally got back to the basics, pacing in front of players inside a large team-meeting room. As a slide of a football field appeared behind him, Edwards asked what the dimensions of a football field are. Perplexed -- or maybe unaware -- the players were silent. What about the width of the yard-line numbers? Crickets. "Just take a guess!" Edwards yelled. Someone finally said a yard, and Edwards' infectious enthusiasm emerged. "A yard is what -- 3 feet, right? EHNT!" Edwards said, making the sound of a buzzer. "Wrong answer! Two [yards]." The response elicited laughter from the players, and Edwards' tone mellowed. "Now, I know you guys knew that," he said. "And I know you guys knew the dimensions of the football field. I say that in jest because some of you guys don't know. Some of you guys did not know the numbers are 2 yards long. You can sit there and say you did, but I know you didn't. "Know the field that you play on -- it's kind of important to line up. You want to be a professional, you want to be a professional at your job? This is your job. Your job is student-athlete. You go to school and be a student. You come and walk on the grass, I would know the dimensions of where I play." Attention to detail. Teaching. That's what Herm Edwards wants to bring as a college coach. A self-proclaimed military brat, Edwards is rejuvenated and excited. It has been 29 years since his last collegiate stint as a defensive assistant at San Jose State, and 10 years since his time in the NFL, in which he spent eight years as a head coach, compiling a 54-74 record. He then worked at ESPN as an NFL analyst beginning in 2009, making this one of the most unconventional college football hires in recent memory, for which Edwards and Anderson have come under enormous scrutiny. "These people think like I left the Earth; I watch football every day," Edwards said, claiming he had about five college and three NFL head-coaching offers over the past decade. "I watch more football when you're in that studio than you do when you're a coach because you see the overview of college football and pro football because there's a connection. That's what I did my whole life."
The coaching itch resurfaced during Edwards' six years coaching the Under Armour All-America Game, which showcases some of the country's top high school senior prospects each January. Being around that talent energized him, but teaching it excited him. Teaching it is what made him crave putting a headset back on. "I had Jameis Winston, Amari Cooper," he said. "That was on my team! I was like, 'These are first-round picks, man.' I said, 'They ain't even been in college yet and they're gonna be first-round picks.' "Steve Mariucci would coach the other team. We would sit there after a second day of practice and go, 'OK what six, seven guys, and we'd point them out, that we knew -- and hadn't played college, yet -- that were going to colleges and going, 'They gonna be first-round picks.' Before they even played a college game!"  In Tempe, Edwards isn't close to seeing the same talent he worked with during all those all-star games, but his meticulous attention to detail is the same and his thirst to inform is just as strong. Naturally, the former NFL defensive back gives extra attention to that position group, but he wraps himself up in every position drill, monitoring every movement. He's so thorough in his approach that he had everyone involved in practice -- from players and equipment managers to cameramen -- go through a 30-minute walk-through in preparation of the first official spring practice. He also makes all of his coaches write him a detailed outline of how they will run their 15-minute fundamental and positional drills for each practice. And every one of those drills starts with the basic football stance, something longtime friend and former coaching partner Tony Dungy introduced him to. "We would talk and tell stories," Edwards said. "This is what Tony said: 'You know I played for Chuck Noll, one of the greatest coaches ever. The first thing he would do in practice -- the first thing -- first day of practice, Pittsburgh Steelers, three, four Super Bowls, got all them Hall of Famers. Every position coach, first thing he had them do, 'Coach, stance, get them in a stance. Get them in a stance.' Can you imagine that? Mel Blount, Mean Joe Green, all those guys, first day of practice they're getting in a stance -- a stance! "[Dungy] said, 'If that coach coached it, Herm, we're going to coach it.' From that day forward, when we left Kansas City Chiefs and we went together to Tampa [Bay Buccaneers], I was the assistant head coach, coach Monte Kiffin was the defensive coordinator, Lovie [Smith] was the linebacker coach, Rod Marinelli, initially, was the defensive line coach. First day of practice, we got [Derrick] Brooks, we got [John] Lynch, we got Hardy Nickerson. We got Ronde Barber, we got them all. We said, 'Line up on the line.' "I lined them up, man, they looked to me, I said, 'We're getting in a stance.' I've been coaching that way ever since. "Every day, if you watch these guys [at Arizona State] in practice, the first thing is fundamentals -- stance. All of them, the first thing the coaches were teaching them was get in your stance, bend your freaking knees. Bend your freaking knees. Don't bend your waist, bend your freaking knees. "Get in a stance." Edwards breaks down his Arizona State players the same way he broke down Brooks and the stars of the Under Armour Game. No matter how good the player or what level of football, Edwards strips everyone down to a bare set of muscles and pads. "Coach them like you coach any athlete -- fundamentally driven," he said. "Fun-da-men-tally driven. It never changes at any level. You can't give a player talent; what you can do is fundamentally teach them how to play the position. Fundamentals help the basic player to be the best player he can be. You cannot not give a player talent. No coach has ever given a player talent; God gives them the talent. Fun-da-men-tally, can you develop the player to be fundamentally sound at the position he plays? And if you do that, you have done a favor to the player and the player will respect you as long as he plays football. The rest of his life, he'll say, 'That coach made me a better player.'"
Anderson has known Edwards for about 25 years, and he understands that his program and his legacy as the athletic director rest on a hire that doesn't make much sense to a lot of people. Anderson, whose office overlooks a stadium undergoing a complete renovation and a brand-new, $60 million, state-of-the-art football facility, isn't afraid of that. He's nailing himself to his new co-pilot.  "I completely understand and accept the fact that we are joined at the hip," Anderson said. "As an athletic director, I completely accept and knew making this decision that at the end of the day, my tenure here as the athletic director will be primarily attached to this hire and the outcomes, and I'm completely prepared for that. The easy thing to do: We're 7-5, going to a bowl game, keep Todd Graham, and then suffer through another very likely mediocre result and ... make the statement to your fans and those who really care about football that we're OK with being average. I didn't come here to be average. "We're not driven by cronyism and helping the good ol' boys. We're driven by outcomes that will essentially prove that we are intelligent folks. The outcomes will be the ultimate messaging that we aren't crazy." Herm Edwards isn't crazy. It remains to be seen if he's a fit for this job, but he isn't crazy. He's having fun. He's having fun teaching, he's having fun buzzing around the practice field, and he's having fun facetiously screaming about devils at news conferences. "I knew the Sun Devil logo before it was 'Forks Up'! I knew the Devil was on the side of the helmet before some of these people were even born!" Edwards is a fast-talking, energetic orator who fills every refrigerator in his house and office with Fig Newtons, and whose lively personality sometimes serves as caricature of himself. Yet, he has a sensational football mind. He's serious about this job, and while he isn't a coach who will ever get caught sleeping in his office (he's out by 7 p.m. every night), Edwards is in Tempe to build something special for the Sun Devils. "I beat to my own drum," he said. "I don't worry about people's opinions. "It's like, you go to practice and you go, 'OK.' Your instincts take over and you just go, 'OK.' You don't lose your vision.'"
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