(Photo: Scotty Bara/WCSN)
Upon Todd Graham’s arrival in Tempe, he has simplified the game of football into three critical aspects: execute the fundamentals, minimize critical errors and achieve 100 percent ball security.
While the expressions may sound trite at times, the fact is, if these three pillars are met, the Sun Devils will find success.
In the 62-27 drubbing that the Sun Devils received from UCLA Thursday night, they went a resounding 0-for-3.
At the forefront of an embarrassing loss—a loss that showcased a Bruins team posting the most points from an opposing school in the history of Sun Devil Stadium—was an excruciatingly poor tackling performance.
The stat agencies that supply box scores do not measure missed tackles, so it is nearly impossible to document exactly how many the Sun Devils had on the evening. With that being said, it is not far-fetched to believe that Graham and his coaching staff did not internalize every missed tackle to memory.
“Obviously, the standard that we set here was not met tonight,” Graham said. “It was embarrassing the way we tackled…We took a step backwards. I have never seen that bad of tackling.”
With words such as “embarrassing,” “catastrophic” and “inexplicable” incessantly used three minutes into the post-game press conference, Graham then slightly softened his stance on describing his team’s tackling performance.
“First of all, when your team doesn’t tackle well, you have to give the other team a lot of credit,” Graham said. “They made you tackle them. I told you that their receiving corps was a strength. I think that they are big and strong and they made you tackle them… That’s coaching, that’s technique, that’s fundamentals. But first you have to give them credit, because those are the guys that are breaking the tackles.”
Safety Jordan Simone had similar thoughts:
“UCLA just did a lot of good things. They just played better than us tonight. We have some things that we have to clean up—we have to tackle better obviously. We’ll get that corrected. We just have to get back to doing what we do.”
The Sun Devils did jump out to a 17-6 lead in the early stages of the game thanks to Mike Bercovici’s touchdown passes to Kody Kohl (his first collegiate touchdown) and Cameron Smith. That lead quickly evaporated, however, and poor tackling was at the root.
With the momentum entirely in UCLA’s favor thanks to an interception returned for a touchdown to end the first half, the Bruins were gifted an 80-yard catch and run and a 100-yard kickoff return that extended the lead to 41-20.
Graham explains:
“The kickoff returned for a touchdown, we’re right there, our best players just don’t tackle him. (Then) it’s third down and three; we’re playing a cover two; they throw a five yard hitch; they catch it; we’re tackling him; our guys knock each other off the guy and the guy goes 65 yards for a touchdown. So tackling was atrocious.”
Delving into the second aspect of Graham’s three-way approach to success that was not met tonight, the Sun Devils made a number of “critical errors” that led to big plays from the Bruins.
The stats tell the whole story: ASU ran 105 plays compared to the 58 of the Bruins; ASU logged 38 first downs while UCLA had 19; time of possession was 34:07 to 25:53 in favor of the Sun Devils. If that does not scream that big plays were the deciding factor, consider UCLA registering five plays of 80 yards or more, compared to the zero from ASU.
Other than the obvious influence these plays have on the scoreboard, seeing the back of a Bruins jersey run untouched for 70 yards or so is demoralizing.
“I thought we even got tired,” Graham said. “We only played 58 plays on defense and we struggled to get lined up at times.”
Graham said Ishmael Adams’ 95-yard interception return for a touchdown right before the half was the swinging point.
“I thought that was obviously the biggest play in the game,” Graham said. “But still, even at that I went in at halftime thinking that we will come back in the second half because they could not stop us. We moved the ball up and down the field all night. Only one that stopped us was us.”
To complete the trifecta of failed tasks on Thursday night, ASU committed four turnovers, which in turn gift-wrapped 17 points for UCLA.
Yet at the same time, was it not to be expected? Thrusting a quarterback with minimal game experience into about as high of pressure situation as possible will naturally breed turnovers. Combining that with a game plan that was clearly not watered down whatsoever (Bercovici’s 42 completions and 68 attempts were both school records), and turnovers will suddenly start to stockpile.
With that being said, the case can be made that Bercovici was not entirely at fault. His first interception was more of a fluke than a misread of the defense, as his jump ball for Jaelen Strong (debatably underthrown) oddly found the hands of UCLA cornerback Anthony Jefferson without him even turning his head to pick up the football.
Bercovici’s second interception, which ended the first half, was the more costly of the two. Still, two plays earlier, Bercovici had thrown a marvelous ball to the corner of the end zone that was dropped by Gary Chambers. A holding penalty would have wiped the possible touchdown out anyways, but again, Bercovici did not have control over that.
Nevertheless, the redshirt junior quarterback assumed full responsibility for the mistake.
“Unacceptable on my behalf,” Bercovici said. “I have to understand the situation: We have three points there, have a great field goal kicker, and can’t put the ball in jeopardy. It’s a learning experience and I’ll never do it again.”
Bercovici also lost a fumble with nine minutes left in the third quarter and the game already spiraling out of control. And an uncharacteristic fumble from the sure-handed DJ Foster in the first quarter comprised the fourth turnover.
Graham summed up his team’s failures in these three critical aspects:
“We just have to go to work and get better. (We) made a lot of inexperienced mistakes and that was the difference in the game. They made the big plays. They won explosive (plays); they won ball security. They played 105 plays on defense, we played 58. Obviously, big plays were a factor. Everything we needed to do we didn’t do tonight, but still proud of our guys and proud to be their coach…We just made a lot of catastrophic mistakes tonight.”
Those catastrophic mistakes—mainly tackling, turnovers and big plays—will all need to be addressed quickly. After receiving two weeks to prepare (to no avail) for UCLA, the Sun Devils will travel to Southern California and the Coliseum in a week to face the No. 18 USC Trojans.
Follow Jacob Garcia on Twitter @Jake_M_Garcia or connect with him on LinkedIn.
