Sun Devil Stadium didn’t boast the usual comforts of home on Saturday, even though it was ASU’s homecoming game. With an uncharacteristic daytime kickoff, the crowd and energy were lacking against Washington State.
Things only got worse as the game unfolded.
Arizona State had two weeks to prepare for the Cougars. Instead of correcting all of the mistakes that they made in a poor second half against Utah, the Sun Devils committed turnovers on their first three possessions, dug themselves a huge first-half hole, and suffered a 34-21 loss that cooled any significant hopes for the rest of the season.
One fan, so aggravated by the team, descended to the railing just behind the Arizona State bench and began yelling at the players. One player yelled back and flung water in his direction before police got involved to quell the situation. The fan’s actions were out of bounds, but they captured the general reaction to this season.
“It just comes down to the execution, and we’ve got to do a great job in practice of just setting even higher standards,” offensive coordinator Zak Hill said. “The guys have got to really focus up and be able to get after it, and the leaders really need to step up, too, and be able to communicate those standards. Are we going to be okay with this or are we going to do something about it? That’s the challenge.”
At the start of the season, there was an uncomfortable vibe surrounding the program. After news broke over the summer, alleging that the Sun Devils had committed numerous recruiting violations, excitement for the season waned. When the Devils took the field to start the season, it was as if the team had teleported back to the Dennis Erickson or Dirk Koetter days. There was a lack of discipline and accountability. There were issues with penalties and turnovers.
Everything blew up in ASU’s face in a loss to BYU, but ASU rebounded with a solid win over Colorado and an eye-opening win at UCLA. Some of the issues resurfaced against Stanford, but the Utah game was the culmination.
“This game is very similar to the Utah game in the sense that in the Utah second half, we did not play very well on either side of the football,” coach Herm Edwards said. “Opening this game up in the first half, we didn’t play very well on either side of the ball.”
Since the Sun Devils trotted to the locker room at halftime in Salt Lake City, they haven’t been the same. After allowing four unanswered touchdowns against Utah, ASU allowed three more in the first half against Washington State. After nearly 60 minutes without scoring, the Sun Devils finally punched it in the end zone just before the first half came to a close.
The second half wasn’t any better, as the offensive struggles continued. More careless turnovers and penalties allowed the Cougars to wide their lead to 34-7 before the Devils got anything going, with two touchdowns in the final six minutes of the game. One of the touchdowns was from backup quarterback Trenton Bourguet.
It was another game where the Sun Devils were their own worst enemy. They had seven penalties for 40 yards, but those penalties all came at crucial points in the game. It seemed like almost every time ASU drew a flag, it was in prime position to score. It also didn’t help that quarterback Jayden Daniels threw two interceptions, and the team had three fumbles.
“The takeaway I’d give from it obviously is the turnovers, miscues,” Edwards said. “Five turnovers is way too many.”
Going into the game, Arizona State was ranked near the bottom of the NCAA in fumbles lost. After seven games, they already had six. Hill was disturbed by the Cougars’ ability to strip the ball.
“We knew they were good at that,” he said. “They’ve done a good job of that all year and they continued to do that with us, so we knew that going in.”
Daniels has five interceptions this season. While that may not be an egregious number, it’s more than he threw in his first and second seasons combined.
Throughout the first half of the season, a point of discussion had been how well Arizona State was playing despite the NCAA investigation hanging over the program. Around the same time the execution issues resurfaced, it was discovered that defensive coordinator Antonio Pierce had wiped his Twitter, erasing nearly everything he recently posted related to Arizona State.
It’s impossible to say if the team’s play is related to that revelation, but it’s a red flag and raises questions about the mental state of the program; whether they know something everyone else does not.
For the two weeks leading up to Washington State, the staff insisted that the team made significant progress during the bye week. Edwards crafted hand-written letters for the captains in hopes of motivating them. The captains said they gathered collectively to game plan before getting the entire team together for a sit down.
None of that was on display in a statement loss, with two telling factors coming into play.
“I think our players maybe took this home venue for granted, thinking that we play at home, everything’s supposed to work out,” Edwards said. “Well, it doesn’t work out when you turn the ball over, you drop balls and you give big plays in the passing game. So we’ve got a lot of fixing to do.”
The Sun Devils are not playing disciplined football under Edwards and this coaching staff any more.
“When you’re playing a game like this and you’re behind, you can’t make those kind of glaring errors,” Edwards said.
Under Todd Graham, the Sun Devils committed an average of 37.4 penalty yards per game. It was good for the fourth fewest in the nation during his tenure. Most of Saturday’s penalties were due to lack of discipline and it’s fair to wonder if Edwards has lost control of the team.
The other concern is accountability. One of the big topics of the weekend was the celebration of the 1996 Pac-10 Championship team. One of the four pillars of success for that team was accountability. Both Juan Roque and Kyle Murphy said this week on the PHNX Sun Devils live show that it helped propel that team to success.
Following a call for pass interference on Saturday, captain Chase Lucas nearly got the team in more trouble by arguing with an official. It came long after the flag had been called and the teams were already lined up for the next snap.
While ASU’s hopes for a Pac-12 South title are not dead, they took a significant hit. More importantly, this loss felt like a turning point for the team and for the season, and both have turned in the wrong direction.
“They were hurting bad in the locker room, so it’s going to hurt. It should hurt. It’s no fun when you lose and to lose two in a row,” Edwards said. “That sense of accomplishment, we haven’t had in a while now, it’s been three weeks because we had a bye week, too. We’ve got to find a way to win a game so we can get some joy back in the locker room.”
