His ever-present exuberance emanating with every word, Herm Edwards leaned back in his chair and delivered a soliloquy.

With a smile that stretched his cheeks and squinted his eyes, Arizona State’s affable football coach spelled out one of his favorite mottos. In doing so, Edwards offered a window into one of the sport’s most unexpected transformations. Once one of college football’s most-doubted men, Edwards is now counted among its most surprising.