ASU football notebook: Walk-on RB making impression

Despite sharing carries with a stable of Arizona State running backs in Tuesday’s scrimmage, the least known and least recruited of the bunch left the biggest impression.

Freshman walk-on tailback James Morrison (Phoenix St. Mary’s) had approximately 85 yards on 12 carries, upstaging fellow backs Dimitri Nance, Ryan Bass and Jarrell Woods.

Morrison said schools such as Arizona, Arizona State, Boise State, Colorado and Colorado State were interested in him out of high school, but none enough to offer a scholarship.

He walked on at ASU and has been opening eyes ever since.

“James is a big strong guy,” coach Dennis Erickson said. “So far he’s looked very, very good and we’ll see as time continues on.”

Morrison isn’t sure why no team offered him a scholarship — a lack of gaudy statistics during an injury-plagued senior year, maybe — but he’s using it as motivation.

“I’m running hard and I do have a chip on my shoulder,” he said.

“I want to prove a lot of people wrong.”

Erickson said the team contemplated offering him a scholarship late, and is glad no other team did.

NOT HAPPY

Erickson was clearly irked by a subpar practice on Thursday, particularly on the offensive side of the ball.

“Defensively, we came out and we were ready to go, focused on what we had to get done, and totally dominated the scrimmage,” Erickson said.

“Offensively, we are not good enough any place on this football team to not be ready to play. You can make 100 excuses about being hot, the dog days .... You’ve got to play and be ready to go, and that wasn’t the case (Thursday).”

SNAPPING TROUBLE

The third-team unit had trouble on offense on Thursday, but much of it had to do with the inconsistency of the snapping from Andrew Sampson to quarterbacks Chasen Stangel and Samson Szakacsy in the shotgun offense.

“When a snap goes 10 feet over your head, it’s kind of hard to operate,” Erickson said.

Sampson, a freshman, had never played center before this season and is still learning his way.

“When you move from offensive guard or tackle to center, that’s hard,” Erickson said.

INJURY UPDATE

Running back Shaun DeWitty (hamstring), center Thomas Altieri (concussion), wide receiver Chris McGaha (toe), and wide receivers Mike Jones (concussion) and Nate Kimbrough (eye) didn’t practice. ...

Wide receiver Kyle Williams was in an orange, noncontact jersey for his injury....

DeWitty likely won’t play in Saturday’s scrimmage at Camp Tontozona.