ASU Football: Forget about bowl eligibility, Sun Devils are looking like Pac-12 South favorites

(Photo: Nicholas Badders/WCSN)

Changing a narrative is never easy. In college football, it can be near impossible.

There was a preconceived notion in Tempe even before this year’s season started about Arizona State: it had coach Todd Graham fighting for his job, quarterback Manny Wilkins having to battle with Blake Barnett for playing time and ASU struggling to get to a postseason-clinching six wins.

After the Sun Devils fourth win of the season Saturday – and third in their opening four conference games – the script has been rewritten.

Forget about bowl eligibility, ASU might be the new favorite to win the Pac-12 South.

No one saw this coming. After an unconvincing non-conference slate that saw ASU narrowly slip by New Mexico State before losing back-to-back games to San Diego State and Texas Tech, optimism was sparse that the Sun Devils could recover. Graham’s job, supposedly dependent upon a bowl appearance, was on life-support.

ASU was also entering the teeth of a brutal stretch of games: Oregon was ranked and unbeaten, Washington was demolishing everybody on their schedule, Utah looked poised to be the division’s dark horse and while USC had been shaky, it was still undefeated through four games.

Turns out, the conference really should have been keeping an eye the school that entered league play 1-2, mired in defensive issues and off-the-field uncertainties. That team is the one tied atop the South Division now, the one with its conference championship destiny in its own hands.

More than that, the Sun Devils have morphed into the division’s most complete team. In their back-to-back wins over Washington and Utah the last two weeks, ASU’s defense has dominated. Its makeshift line has looked anything but improvised, shutting down opponents running games to the tune of 201 combined rush yards allowed between the two victories – ASU had been allowing 190 rush yards per game in their first five contests of the season prior.

“These kids are eager; they are fun to coach. They aren’t excuse makers,” defensive coordinator Phil Bennett said, the mastermind behind ASU’s defensive turnaround.

The turnaround up front also helped disrupt opposing quarterbacks. In week three, Texas Tech’s Nic Shimonek looked at ease while torching the Devils’ defense for 543 yards and six touchdowns. Since then however, ASU had held the talented trio of Justin Herbert, Jake Browning and Tyler Huntley to a combined 575 total passing yards against ASU’s young secondary – less than 200 yards per game.

“Our practices are up-tempo, it’s fast, we tackle,” senior linebacker Christian Sam said after Saturday’s win. “They don’t let nothing slide. Everything you see in the game, we do in practice. It’s no surprise. We go out there and execute it.”

ASU’s offense has been equally as impressive. Building around the steadily stellar play of Wilkins, the Sun Devils attack has found a running game rhythm in league play. The now healthy tail back duo of Demario Richard and Kalen Ballage has become increasingly productive behind a more cohesive offensive line, helping ASU eclipse 200 rushing yards in two of its last three games.

“We are coming in knowing every week, if we don’t run the ball had they are going to knock our heads off,” Richard said. “In practice we are just trying to push each other to be great and you are seeing big leaps of improvement for everybody.”

Early in the year, Billy Napier’s offense was reliant on big plays in the passing game to move the ball. In the last two weeks alone though, the Sun Devils have orchestrated seven drives of 10-plus plays, adding a methodical aspect to their offensive attack.

They have controlled the line of scrimmage, time of possession and the overall pace of games. Oh, and the scoreboard too.

Meanwhile, other division contenders have faded during the Sun Devils resurgence. UCLA and Colorado, teams picked to finish third and fourth respectively in the preseason South division media poll, have stumbled to a combined 2-7 start to conference play. Utah, an annual player in the division race, dropped close games to Stanford and USC before being dismantled by the Sun Devils this week. Only ASU, USC and Arizona maintain single-loss status in league play entering the final week of October.

Just like everybody was predicting back in August, right?

“We knew we had good personnel,” Graham said at Saturday’s post-game press conference. “Obviously we’ve had some (personnel) losses…but I think it’s just continue to work and we got a lot of things corrected. We are just better.”

By this time next week, the South could have only a lone single-loss team remaining. The Wildcats face a tall task at home against No. 15 Washington State; while quarterback Khalil Tate has become a cult sensation in Tucson, his school has yet to beat a ranked team this season and will be underdogs against the Cougars.

The real showdown of the weekend will take place two hours north of Arizona Stadium though, where USC travels to Tempe on the back of its blowout loss at Notre Dame last week. It wasn’t a conference loss, but USC’s nightmarish trip to South Bend fired a devastating blow to their conference championship credibility. Once a Heisman hopeful, Trojan quarterback Sam Darnold has become a turnover machine, coughing the ball up twice in South Bend to bring his season’s giveaway total to 20. The Fighting Irish hung nearly 500 total yards on coach Clay Helton’s defense too.

Amazingly, Helton might enter Saturday’s game in Tempe on more of a coaching bubble than Graham.

Again, just like everybody was predicting back in August, right?

Technically, ASU controls its own destiny right now. But the Sun Devils can take a strangle-hold on the division lead with a third consecutive win this week. A 4-1 Pac-12 record would give the team breathing room: ASU would only need to win two of its three games against Colorado (home game), UCLA (road game) and Oregon State (road game) to make November’s Territorial Cup game a division-clinching opportunity.

It’s been an amazing month for ASU, which has emerged in spite of its inauspicious preseason expectations and its uninspiring non-conference campaign. Back when the Sun Devils were 1-2 and the pressure was cranked up on Graham and his squad, the sixth year head coach spouted a convenient line. He equated pre-conference play to pre-season play: unimportant and easily forgotten in the grand scheme of a season.

A month later, his team is making good on that claim.

There is another assertion they now have the unexpected chance to validate.

“Our mission here is to be the best in the Pac-12,” Graham said last week. “That starts with winning the South.”

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