Arizona State Football: The Offseason To-Do List for the Sun Devils

National signing day is now a thing of the past, so it is now time for new head football coach Todd Graham and the Arizona State Sun Devils to buckle down and get focused on putting all the pieces of the puzzle together for this upcoming season.

There are plenty of things that must be addressed, as this program is going to be going under a new regime in what Graham will be bringing to the desert for the 2012 season and beyond.

With a few more tasks on schedule, here is what the Sun Devils must get done this off-season.

Establish an Identity

This is no longer Dennis Erickson's team, so the Arizona State Sun Devils are going to need to make a change to their identity for this coming season.

While this team looked to be a threat this past season, things fell apart under Erickson in the second half. That made this team look rather comical, especially in the eyes of their Pac-12 foes.

The Sun Devils are right now look like a team that just can't get things done, as they looked extremely undisciplined this past season.

It will be important for Graham to take this bull—err Devil—by the horns and change the the feel of his program right now.

He has already done so by implementing strong disciplinary action on players like defensive end Junior Onyeali.

It will be important now to keep it up.

Establish a Leader

So who is going to be the leader for this team?

Quarterback Brock Osweiler? Nope, going to the draft.

Linebacker Vontaze Burfict? Nope, going to the draft.

Lineman Garth Gerhart? Nope, graduated and going to the draft.

So who will it be? Well running back Cameron Marshall is a nice start, but he is going to be gone after this season so he won't be able to grow as a leader for this team.

The guy who needs to become the leader of this team is whoever takes over at starting quarterback, especially since that guy is going to be either a sophomore or a junior.

A little bit more on this...

Establish a Starting Quarterback

With junior quarterback Brock Osweiler surprising essentially the entire nation with his choice to enter the NFL Draft, Todd Graham is going to be one busy man deciding who is going to be the starting quarterback for his Arizona State Sun Devils this coming season.

He has plenty of options, but most notably it will be between sophomore quarterbacks Mike Bercovici (pictured) and Taylor Kelly (RS) or freshman quarterback Michael Eubank (RS). Another red-shirted quarterback in Danny Lewis could have a shot, but he hasn't been mentioned so much as a potential starter.

All three starters offer a little something different to the team, so it will remain to be seen which will be selected as the starter when the time comes. 

Any of these guys, considering how young they are, should be established as the leader of this team. They should be here for at least another two seasons, and possibly a third or fourth for the freshman. This will give the Sun Devils an identity to build around.

Continue to Tinker with the Secondary

After the way things fell apart for the Arizona State Sun Devils this past season the team should never be satisfied with their secondary, so they must always be open to changing it around.

This team got off to a phenomenal start this past season, forcing 13 interceptions through the first two months. The team finished out the final part of the season only picking off their opposition three times, as this secondary collapsed and was unable to be a weekly threat like they were to start the season.

The team was just embarrassing in this area of the team, and it most definitely attributed to the team's end of the year struggles.

There are a lot of young guys for the Sun Devils in the secondary next season, so hopefully they will find a little more consistency with this past season now under their belts.

Work on Discipline

There is no way of avoiding this stat—an unfavorable one at that. The Arizona State Sun Devils this past season were the most undisciplined team in college football. They ranked second to the Southern Miss Golden Eagles for most penalties with 104, while placing first in the NCAA with 1,037 penalty yards.

To put it into perspective, the team gave up 25 percent of the yards that Osweiler threw for this past year.

The next team to them was the California Golden Bears who had 941 yards.

This is just unacceptable, and it will be the biggest obstacle standing in the way of coach Graham and his inaugural season.

If he can turn this team around with just that, there is a chance that they can make a lot of noise in the Pac-12 this season.

It just can't go ignored that the lack in discipline can lose so many games for a team. It won't be an easy task, but it is quite possibly the most important.

Jeff Chase is a Featured Columnist for the Chicago Cubs and Arizona State football.