ASU Football: End of Season Wrap-up, Part Two

The 2016 college football season has come and gone for ASU, and it is time to look back and breakdown the whole season for ASU football.

Looking back, ASU’s loss to USC should have been a bigger sign of things to come. After ASU was destroyed by USC, their first loss of the season, most people thought that the Sun Devils would be able to recover. What people didn’t account for was how good USC really was, and how many flaws of ASU’s they exposed.

The defense was the biggest flaw exposed. USC allowed the whole nation to see that the Sun Devil defense wasn’t a formidable force when they go up against a balanced offense that can run the ball and throw the ball with minimal success. The moment the defense was exposed, the season went downhill fast.

Another flaw that game exposed was the one-dimensional offense that the ASU coaches were giving their quarterbacks. Too many screens and not enough shots downfield gave USC’s defense a pretty easy night as they coasted to a victory and showed the nation that ASU had some work to do.

Looking back, ASU’s win against UCLA could be seen as the game that doomed the Sun Devils. ASU earned the victory over UCLA, but it came on false pretenses. Josh Rosen was injured early on in the game and his backup, Mike Fafaul, never looked comfortable being in the game. By earning that victory after a bad loss to USC, it gave the Sun Devils reason to believe that they didn’t need to change anything about their team.

Next: ASU Football: End of Season Wrap-Up, Part 1

By gaining this false hope, ASU doomed themselves for later on in the season. By refusing to change their defense around, continuing with the same old, same old on offense and not recognizing their faults, they were bound to fail.