ASU Football: To be the champion, you must beat the champion

(Photo: ASU Athletics)

The No. 17 Arizona State Sun Devils end every practice by breaking a final huddle with a “national champs” chant from everyone on the team. With signs throughout the team’s facilities and consistent post-practice comments from head coach Todd Graham about the subject, it’s been made clear to everyone what the goal is for ASU: Pac-12 champions, Rose Bowl champions and national champions.

Every team that wants to become champions has one big challenge to overcome, though: Dethroning those at the top.

That’s a seat that has ended in possession of Stanford in each of Graham’s first two seasons at ASU and it’s something that every player and coach in the program is well aware of.

“Every champion had to overcome a hump,” ASU defensive tackle Jaxon Hood said. “The Bulls had to overcome the Pistons, the Pistons had to overcome the Celtics and that’s the way it is in sports. We’re ready to take the hump because I think we got over the hump last year.”

In 2013, the Sun Devils were dealt their first loss of the year via Stanford, 42-28, and lost in a rematch in the Pac-12 Championship Game in Tempe, 38-14. Ten months later, those are losses that are still fresh in the mind of Graham, whether he likes it or not.

“Well I’ve been trying to forget about them,” Graham said. “I just talked to our players about being so close… that hurt, it hurt a lot.”

With the Pac-12 title on the line, the two teams traded scores early, but the Cardinal slowly pulled away and outscored the Sun Devils 10-0 in the second half.

“They had been there before and we hadn’t,” Hood said. “I think we were way too hyped, we were over-hyped for that type of game especially: A game that’s going to be a war in the trenches. It’s not about the pre-game and it’s not about the hippity hopping around.”

With an offseason to reflect and prepare for another run at dethroning the champions, junior quarterback Mike Bercovici said there are positives to take away from the previous losses to Stanford. Particularly, a pair of explosive touchdowns from D.J. Foster from 51 and 65 yards in the Pac-12 Championship.

“It’s just exciting to know that we can move the ball on them,” Bercovici said. “There’s no reason to think ‘Oh they’re big up front, we can’t run.’ No way. We proved that we can do it.

“Credit to the [Stanford] defense, they’ve done a great job the last couple weeks, but we know if we do what we need to do, we’re going to keep going, we’re going to make explosive plays…We can easily get up to 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, whatever it may be.”

If ASU was able to score 30 or more points against Stanford as Bercovici believes the team is capable of doing, it would be the first team to do so in 2014. In fact, it would be the first team to accomplish more than 28 points against the Cardinal defense since a 2012 overtime shootout against Arizona finished 54-48. No team in 2014 has even scored more than 17 against Stanford.

“You look at their team, I think they lost seven seniors and they had a safety that left early, but then you pull up the roster this year and they’re better statistically and they have seven seniors,” said ASU offensive coordinator Mike Norvell. “All the guys they’re playing this year, we played against last year. They’ve been able to play the last few years, so even though they’re some new starters, they’re very experienced.”

On Saturday, the Sun Devils will take on that group and try to get over a hump they were unable to get over twice in 2013.

“These guys have our respect,” Graham said. “They’re the two-time defending champions and they’ve defined what we’re trying to do.”

You can reach Adam Stites on Twitter @AdamStitesASU or by email arstites@asu.edu

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