Brian Ward Opens Up About Defensive Philosophies

Kenny Dillingham has made many great decisions when it comes to running the Arizona State football program since taking over as head coach in November 2022.

Among the wisest choices was hiring Washington State defensive coordinator Brian Ward to lead the Arizona State defense - that choice has resulted in the Sun Devils boasting consecutive units that ranked within the top half of the conferences they were part of.

Ward took to Brad Denny's 'Speak of the Devils' podcast last week to discuss many in-depth topics - one of which happened to be based around current trends when it comes to defensive strategies and philosophies.

From Ward:

"I have a philosophy on defense and there's been times in my career where I tried to move away and do things that didn't fit with our philosophy, and it really didn't meet with very positive results. And I could say, you know, at one place it met with disastrous results. And since then I've really gotten to the principles of what we do defensively and the system that we're a part of."

"I'm always looking at what other people are doing, but I'm also conscious of what types of offenses they're seeing... what types of personnel that they're having to defend, what types of styles of offense that they're having to defend. And you know there's just very different offenses when you go from conference to conference in college football right now... a lot of the success that they're (defenses) having is symptomatic of the offenses that they're seeing..."

The modern landscape of college football is wildly different than it was even five years ago - and Ward has clearly found a way to bridge his long-standing philosophies with new twists. That has resulted in a Sun Devil defense that creates ample amounts of turnovers, creates key stops, and generally is disruptive at the line of scrimmage.

Ward's defense will look to improve even more in 2025 compared to the top five group in the Big 12 last season - they certainly possess the talent to do so.

Read more on projecting the 10 best players on Arizona State's roster going into the new season here, and on Sam Leavitt being selected as the Big-12 Preseason Offensive Player of the Year here.

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