ASU football's Max Iheanachor moved from basketball to O-line starter within 2 years

"Next-man up" is an oft-used phrase by teams to describe how to deal with their starters' injuries.

Arizona State (1-1) has dealt with a lot of next-man down, digging deep into its offensive line's depth chart already in this early season.

After losing four of its top linemen, the latest blow was in ASU's home loss to Oklahoma State on Saturday when starting right tackle Emmit Bohle suffered a season-ending lower leg injury early in the first quarter.

Inexperienced junior Max Iheanachor replaced him for the rest of the game and made a solid impression in the losing effort, after picking up football for the first time just two years ago.

“He didn’t flinch, and I looked at him and I said, ‘Are you ready?’ He said that’s what I came here for," ASU offense line coach Saga Tutiele said. "And I said, ‘It’s just like practice. Do your job.’ He’s got some veterans around to help him out. It’s good for him, and Emmit was proud of him and how he fought."

Iheanachor will start for ASU at home against Fresno State (2-0) on Saturday.

He transferred this past spring from East Los Angeles Community College. He's a 6-foot-6 former high school basketball small forward at King Drew Medical (Willowbrook, Calif.) near where his family settled in Compton after moving from Nigeria when he was 13. King Drew Medical doesn't have a football team.

But his footwork from playing soccer in Nigeria and basketball in L.A. for his entire life and his size helped him emerge as a top JUCO recruit after just one year of playing football at East L.A. Community College.

"I came into JUCO last year at 240 (pounds). Me coming in, I’m thinking, OK, tight end. I didn’t know anything about football. I just knew I wanted to have the ball in my hands," Iheanachor said.

"And then my coach was like, ‘Nah, we’re thinking O-line’s gonna be good for you.' So I just listened to him, gained weight just eating everyday and here I am.”

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Iheanachor turned his body into a 325-pound brick wall from weight training and a massive meal plan, then trimmed down to 305 for this season.

He said the "physicality level, strength, and speed of the game" are the three main differences between JUCO and the Division I level. Iheanachor is still raw, learning right tackle and other lineman positions along the way from his graduate senior teammate Aaron Frost, graduate assistant and former ASU O-lineman Steve Miller, and Tutiele.

“I love it. Coming in everyday learning new stuff from the older guys, the coach, just learning more about football," Iheanachor said. "I feel like that will help me more on the field, just knowing what you doing, being smart, technique, and how to execute blocks.”

Coach Kenny Dillingham said he's never dealt with this amount of O-linemen injuries in his career, and explained how those losses have impacted ASU's practices without them.

“We’ve had to change the practice structure offensively. So we don’t go versus scouts because we don’t have enough O-linemen to run two groups," Dillingham said.

"So we have to do a period of scouts, where scouts that appear as scouts versus on essentially air in front just because we still have to get the rest of the skill in everybody. But we don’t have the depth to run a defensive scout team, and in the two-deep offensively.”

ASU's injured top O-linemen besides Bohle are juniors Isaia Glass and Cade Briggs, who were injured last week in practice, Frost who hasn't played since last year, and graduate senior Ben Coleman before last spring. Also, Joey Ramos has been playing with a cast on his hand.

The consistent main rotation guys who haven't been injured are juniors Leif Fautanu at center and Sione Finau at left guard.

But Tutiele and the coaching staff are making it work with Iheanachor and their other sophomore Bram Walden to help protect the pocket moving forward.

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“Injuries happen in football. That’s why I coach how I coach and I get them prepared. It’s easier to coach the first guys but you gotta get number two, number three, and number four ready," Tutiele said.

"If you’re not doing that then when times like this happen, you’re not prepared to compete and win the games. I think we’ve done a good job of preparing those guys to be ready when it’s their turn, and they don’t know when their turn is. For Max, it happened fast, and for Bram, it happened fast. They gotta step up, and they did.”

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona State football lineman makes quick transition from basketball