The Herm Edwards Experiment: How ASU's Unconventional Football Coach Is Playing To Win The Game

By Steve Goldstein
Published: Wednesday, January 15, 2020 - 11:59am
Updated: Thursday, January 16, 2020 - 2:50pm

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Herm Edwards ASU Football coach
Justin Parham/Cronkite News
Herm Edwards in 2019.

Two seasons ago, Arizona State University announced that Herm Edwards — a former NFL head coach who’d become nationally known through his work on ESPN — would be taking over from the fired Todd Graham.

Criticism was rampant, in part because Edwards had never run a college program and was well into his 60s. How would he relate to younger people and attract them to come to ASU?

There was also something different in how Edwards’s role was described. He was going to be more of a CEO rather than a traditional football coach. After two years at the helm, a bowl game victory last month and a nationally-regarded recruiting class, the Edwards experiment is mostly considered to be a success.

The Show spoke with Edwards days before he received a two-year contract extension, and he began by discussing the differences between college coaching and the NFL.

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