(Photo: Brady Klain/WCSN)
The situation is all too familiar for Arizona State football.
A 10-7 win over then No. 18 Michigan State on the road earlier this year propelled the Devils into the No. 24 ranking the following week. That ranking did not last long after losing to Colorado in its next game 34-31.
After beating then No. 15 Cal two weeks ago in Berkeley, ASU jumped right back into the top-25, grabbing the No. 18 ranking after the bye week.
However, the national recognition is perceived as just a number for most of Arizona State’s defense.
“We’re not looking at the numbers right now of being 18,” redshirt sophomore defensive lineman Tyler Johnson said. “We’re going this Saturday to play a football team. We’re going to work together and come out with a W. It’s not about being in the trap or not; it’s about we need to work better together and we need to communicate better.”
For ASU, it knows that in order to stay ranked, it must act like it has been there before. That’s why the whole motto the past few weeks of practice has been about staying humble.
“If you want to be good, you got to know how to handle success,” defensive coordinator Danny Gonzales said. “If we want to be who we want to be, get used to it because when you get your tail whooped, nobody around is going to feel sorry for you.
“Everybody knows who they are because they won a few games and everybody is telling them how great they are. Good, now handle it. Don’t get arrogant and don’t think you have arrived.”
Sophomore safety Aashari Crosswell knows the team cannot get too overconfident.
“We’re not going to let that get to us,” Crosswell said. “Coach Herm [Edwards] already told us, ‘Don’t let that get to us,’ because last year, we were ranked before and then we went down and we weren’t ranked anymore. It’s just staying humble at the end of the day, playing fast and leaving it on the grass. We’re not getting big minded. We are just staying humble.”
But why does ASU have a tendency to fall flat in games after beating ranked opponents? Senior defensive tackle DJ Davidson believes it’s in what happens before the game rather than during.
“It’s just preparation, really, at the end of the day for any week for people that aren’t ranked to being a ranked team going into next week,” Davidson said. “It’s our preparation and just how focused we are. Just to make sure in the film room, we are not too arrogant and we humble ourselves. We’re just really trying to learn and do our best.”
ASU’s defensive line could use an improvement in pressuring the quarterback. It gathered zero sacks on Colorado’s Steven Montez after the Michigan State game and this unit only has 10 sacks in five games.
“We haven’t touched the quarterback much this season,” Johnson said. “It obviously shows where we need to improve on and we need to do it pretty soon because we only have seven more games.”
Davidson agrees with his teammate.
“Just making sure as a defensive line that we win in the front first,” Davidson said, who has 1.5 sacks so far this season. “It all starts there as the first line of defense and also just to try to make it so it doesn’t get into the secondary. We just got to communicate and grow as brothers.”
Gonzales also wants to see his defense perform better on third-down. He cited how against Colorado, there were many 3rd and shorts because the defense played “terrible second down defense.” In the last three games, opposing offenses are a combined 26 of 50 (52%) on third down.
“We want that number to be around 35 percent to be successful where we want to be and have a good ratio,” Gonzales said. “If we can get off the field on third down and our offense can sustain some drives, [opponents] won’t have as many plays. We got to make sure the quarterback is indecisive but we got to get to him and hit him.
The message for ASU is pretty simple: show that it deserves to stay ranked. How will that message be shown? Gonzales hopes to see a ruthless performance by his defense.
“It’s going to be 90 degrees on Saturday at 12:30,” Gonzales said. “I hope [Washington State] feels like they’ve walked into hell and I hope our boys come out tenacious and we’re violent and nasty and they limp out of this place because we whooped them. We’ll see.”
