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OGDEN — The event that has been the focus of Weber State football since Jay Hill was hired to coach the Wildcats in December 2013 is only eight days away — the season opener at Arizona State.
With that game in mind, the Wildcats are focusing more and more of their energy and focus each day on perfecting their own process, as they prepare for a Sun Devils team that hosted the Pac-12 championship game last season, where they lost to Stanford.
Still, the Sun Devils are returning starting quarterback Taylor Kelly, and expect to feature an offense that will come close to replicating its 39.7 points a game last season.
Hill coached against the Sun Devils several times while coaching at Utah, and said the key to stopping Arizona State is getting consistent pressure on the quarterback.
“If you go back and watch the games where defenses played well against (Arizona State), that’s what happened is the defensive line was disruptive,” he said. “Stanford did a great job of just stemming, moving, giving them different looks up front, and changing up who the quarterback had to read. Then, Utah did a great job of blitzing and moving around. Not many teams played them well.”
"They have a lot of speed, so the biggest thing we have to worry about is just making sure that our alignments and our assignments are fundamentally sound," Weber defensive line coach Jason Kaufusi said.
Wildcats defensive line coach Jason Kaufusi, who previously coached at Weber under former coach Ron McBride, has been focusing on fostering toughness and tenacity with the new coaching staff.
“You’ve got a new coaching staff that’s coming in, but it’s a change,” said Kaufusi, who coached last season at BYU. “Obviously, just the standard of what we expect from them; it’s going to be a change. It’s still a work in progress."
Weber State has noted several things about the Arizona State attack that should concern a team, but overall team speed at all positions is a primary concern.
“They have a lot of speed, so the biggest thing we have to worry about is just making sure that our alignments and our assignments are fundamentally sound,” he said.
Kaufusi said the development of his unit has been positive, and credits much of it to the leadership of team captain Connor Myers.
“He brings the leadership, which you obviously need from a senior,” he said. “He brings the courage, and he’s kind of the standard, so he brings everyone else up and kind of takes care of everybody. He’s also a vocal leader, as well.”
Several freshmen have made their mark on the defensive line during fall camp, with many of them being fresh recruits, namely former Stansbury Stallion Iosua Upeta.
“(Upeta); he’s doing really, really well for a freshman coming in,” Kaufusi said. “He hasn’t had a lot of missed assignments, which is good. He’s very strong, but he’s really raw. But, he has a lot of potential.”
Overall, Hill said Wednesday’s practices saw marked increases in execution and efficiency.
“I thought (practice) was cleaner today. We did a lot of scout work, so the offense and defense working against scout teams; getting some Arizona State looks so as the players are studying film, they know exactly what to expect," he said. "The tempo slows down a little bit when you’re doing that, but that’s OK — we want to make sure that it’s super clean.
“I think we took another step forward, and that’s a big deal to take another step forward.”
