ASU Football: A First Look at Utah
By Mike Slifer
Earlier today, the new college football playoff rankings were released. ASU is #14 in that list. That’s exciting news. And it’s something to be proud of.
But that ranking, along with other rankings, records and statistics are for fans, analysts, and writers. Ideally, the players should not be paying attention to any of that. This ASU football team needs to stay focused on one thing, and one thing only….Utah.
The Utes come to Tempe on Saturday night for a PAC-12 showdown. Both teams are 6-1, 3-1 in the conference. Both teams are ranked. And both teams effectively control their own destiny to win the South and play for a conference championship. (and more).
Utah appears to be a better team than they were last year. ( Devils in Detail believes they were pretty good last year, too. In 2013, they lost 5 games by a touchdown or less. This season, they have flipped the script and won three recent games in the last minute or overtime.) This season, Utah leads the nation in quarterback sacks. They have created as many turnovers in 7 games this year as they generated all of last season. (13)
Defensive linemen Nate Orchard has been a beast for Utah this season, garnering 8 sacks and bringing relentless pressure on the quarterback. His presence will create an interesting subplot as ASU will be starting offensive lineman Stephon McCray. McCray is making his first start at guard, replacing the injured Christian Westerman. (Westerman was injured during the Washington game and is doubtful for this Saturday)
The Utah running game has been boosted by the emergence of junior college transfer running back, Devontae Booker. Thanks to him, the Utes are rushing for 200 yards per game. Their quarterback, Travis Wilson has been very efficient spreading the ball around and has yet to throw an interception. Wide receiver Dres Anderson is a burner that is tough to cover.
The special teams units for Utah are solid. Statistically, they are above average in every category. They don’t make mistakes.
That’s a good way to sum up this Utah team as a whole: They don’t make mistakes. They don’t beat themselves. They play tough, hard-nosed defense and couple that with an efficient, ball-control offense. Then they top it off with solid special teams play and few penalties.
The ASU Sun Devils will absolutely have their hands full this weekend. Utah runs the ball extremely well and ASU is ranked 11th in the PAC-12 defending the run. (although they’ve done much better recently). The Utah defense is very stout up front and does not give up a lot of big plays. In fact, this season, Utah has been called “this year’s Stanford” by some experts.
The only personnel advantage the Sun Devils might have is the match-up between the ASU wide receivers and the Utah secondary. The Utes back end defenders are good, but not great. They have played well enough to win, but tend to get beat. They’ll have to really get after it to defend the likes of ASU’s Jaelon Strong, Cameron Smith and DJ Foster lined up wide.
Let the preparation begin.