JONESBORO -- Malcolm Kelly's departure forced change.
ASU Coach Blake Anderson hired Kelly on Jan. 9. Pegged as the new Red Wolves' wide receiver coach, Kelly left ASU in late February for the same job at Texas Christian University.
"We thought Malcolm Kelly was going to be our wideouts coach," Anderson said. "When he left, then it became another conversation, like, 'What do we do?'"
From there, Anderson all but fully delegated filling the offensive staff to first-year offensive coordinator Keith Heckendorf.
Heckendorf will call plays and has as much power as any ASU offensive coordinator under Anderson since 2014-15 offensive coordinator Walt Bell, the current Massachusetts head coach.
"I was involved in all of it, but I really wanted his opinion," said Anderson, who was ASU's primary play-caller throughout his first five seasons until 2018.
"Right now, especially, with the amount of time that I'm committing to my wife and her [cancer] fight, he really, truly, has as much control in that room as anybody I've been with."
Heckendorf "stood on the table" to hire Rashad Jackson as ASU's running backs coach in January, which the school did, Anderson said.
Jackson and Heckendorf met when Heckendorf was a graduate assistant at Nebraska from 2004-06.
Since 2006, Jackson has coached running backs, wide receivers and tight ends and has also been an offensive coordinator as recently as last season at Trinity Community College in Athens, Texas.
One of the first dominoes needed to fall in order to replace Kelly was transferring Jackson, who played tight end at East Central (Okla.), from running backs coach to tight ends coach.
"When I hired Rashad in the first place, there was always a possibility when I brought him in that he could either coach tight ends or running backs," Anderson said.
"There's some intimate knowledge that you have having played the position at the collegiate level that other guys don't have," he added.
Coaching tight ends could also had been given to Kyle Cefalo, who is entering his third season at ASU.
Cefalo had the ability to coach more than one position -- tight ends or wide receivers. Cefalo has operated as an inside wide receivers coach for the past two seasons.
Another option was to make another outside hire to coach the outside wide receivers, Kelly's former position, and keep Cefalo with the inside wide receivers.
Heckendorf, who was hired Jan. 9, then presented Anderson with another major idea in order to puzzle the staff together.
Heckendorf was able to inspect how ASU's wide receivers reacted impressively to Cefalo as their primary coach since Kelly's departure, Anderson said.
"We just decided midstream that we've got our wideouts coach right here on campus," Anderson said. "Now let's find the best fit for our staff."
ASU promoted Cefalo as its lone wide receivers coach and hired Desmond Lindsay to replace Jackson as running backs coach and complete the offensive staff.
Jackson, a former wide receivers coach at Memphis in 2018, began his coaching career as a receivers coach at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College and spent 2016-17 coaching tight ends in 2016 and wideouts in 2017.
A theme of ASU's 2019 offensive coaching staff is position versatility.
"We felt like Desmond was a great fit personality wise," Anderson said. "His footprint in recruiting that he's been in the last 10 years was perfect for us in Mississippi. He had the flexibility to coach several positions, really any skill position on offense.
"Everybody's comfortable about where they're coaching. They all seem to fit really well. It fits our personnel the best."
Other than Cefalo, ASU's full offensive coaching staff is made of first-year coaches, which also includes offensive line coach Sean Coughlin.
"You know, it's like anything -- it's good and bad," Heckendorf said. "We're all new."
"The good part about it is nobody's got a preconceived notion going in, saying here's how we've done it in the past or here's how it's got to be. Everybody is coming in with an open slate of 'OK, what do we want to do?'"
Sports on 03/30/2019