Arizona State Football: 3 Wildcard Players on the 2018 Sun Devils Roster

Merlin Robertson (Linebacker)

Freshman

Like I mentioned earlier, the defense is super young. They lost basically every effective player from last year’s team and now have to rebuild.

Their secondary has some guys back but everything up front is surrounded by question marks. One place where Herm Edwards is excited about, though, is his group of linebackers. Specifically, Edwards praised freshman linebacker Merlin Robertson.

Herm Edwards on Merlin Robertson, per Sun Devil Source.

"“Oh boy he’s got the ability and the intellect to be a very good football player. And he’s a freshman so I don’t want to anoint him but I just think for him to come in here and the defense is pretty complex, it has a lot of things going on, he doesn’t make a lot of mental errors. He really doesn’t. He’s focused in and he’s just a pup. It’s fun watching him because every day he gets a little more confident. He doesn’t say a lot but I could see him after the season, he’ll be one of the leaders over there. We’ll have a young group of guys and he’ll be one of the guys. He’s earned the respect of everyone. They just watch the tape and watch him. This guy’s a freshman and he’s a big, powerful athlete that can run. He’s very instinctive as well. It’ll be fun to watch him play. It’ll really be a lot of fun.”"

Robertson, at this point, is running with the first-team defense regularly. If he can be a breakout star for the defense, it’ll provide them with some much-needed consistency.

Yes, losing senior Jay Jay Wilson hurt. However, maybe it opened the door for a surprise season from Merlin Robertson.