Behind Enemy Lines: 5 Questions With Arizona State Expert
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With the 23rd-ranked Oregon State football team set to square off with Arizona State in Tempe this weekend, BeaversEdge chats with ASUDevils Publisher Hod Rabino to learn more about the Sun Devils!
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1. Overall Thoughts On The Season
Hod Rabino: "As far as the season, I can't say I'm too surprised. I did think ASU could have won six games but I also knew a lot of things had to break their way.
The loss to Eastern Michigan in week three caused Herm Edwards to be fired and essentially guaranteed a losing season. Even though ASU had the surprise win over Washington, UW is still a team I personally can't figure out. It's been rough from a personnel standpoint, and some key injuries to a team that doesn't have a lot of depth, hurts even more. You had issues with Glenn Thomas (offensive coordinator) who really wasn't effective. But that's only part of the story of why quarterback Emory Jones hasn't played well.
Head coach Shaun Aguano took over the playcalling duties recently and saw some improvement but really not enough to have the team pull off a miracle and be bowl eligible. The narrative with ASU is already known with the NCAA sanctions and it's like a dark cloud that's been hovering over the team since summer of 2021. It's not a huge surprise to see ASU in the state they are...
Aguano will be considered for the head job, but I don't think he has a realistic chance at it... I believe he'll be given the courtesy interview but won't get as much consideration as someone like Kenny Dillingham...
The state of the program is a bleak one, but hoping for a brighter future. They've got one hell of a hill to climb back to respectability."
2. ASU's Motivation With No Postseason & Coaching Change
HR: "As cliché as it sounds, they're playing for pride right now. ASU is kind of a funny team because you look at the last two losses (UCLA & WSU) and they're playing pretty bad in the first half. But the second half, you see a totally different team. So this team, that would think would be waiving the white flag after a bad first half really comes out in both of those games and play much better in the second half. It's a bit frustrating for ASU fans to watch, but they know the team isn't going to give up.
Sure, they've got talent deficiencies and other aspects holding them back, but they've fought really hard in the last two and I don't see why they wouldn't fight this game on senior day. Again, not to sound too cliché about senior day, but that's definitely a game that carries more emotion.
Time will tell if it will affect ASU to play well for four quarters as opposed to two, but with the resolve we've seen from this team, I don't see any reason why that trend would stop. I don't think anyone has to doubt ASU's fight because the proof has really been there these past two weeks...
3. ASU Beat Washington This Season, What Was The Recipe?
HR: "I just feel that Washington is a suspect team because their defense, especially their secondary is horrible. Anyone who has watched the Pac-12 for the past several years knows if there's one thing you can count of from UW, it's a lockdown secondary. You'd better make sure the ground attack is on-point because if you pass for more than 200 yards, that's a minor miracle. However, that famed secondary in Seattle is just nowhere to be found... ASU, who did switch quarterbacks because of the injury to Emory Jones, brought in Trenton Bourguet who was able to have his way with the secondary. That's what really helped ASU...
UW's quarterback Michael Penix is the best quarterback they've seen up there in a long time and he can really shred teams' secondaries. He really did have success against ASU, the only major difference in that matchup with the pick-six. I talked earlier about ASU not getting a ton of breaks this season, but that was definitely the game they had some luck on their side. Bourguet was able to breathe some new life into the offense and ASU's bye the following week actually maybe came at a bad time as Jones was able to heal up and started against Stanford following the bye.
ASU struggled quite a bit in that one against one of the worst teams in the conference... looking back, I feel that if there's no bye week and Bourguet is the starter, I think ASU wins that game and who knows how the rest of the season goes from there. The win vs Washington does look impressive, but with UW's defense, I'm not sure how impressive it is. More importantly, that game against Stanford really almost killed any hope of having a decent season."
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