ASU football: Devils must stop deadly SDSU rushing attack

As ASU football take the field Saturday for their game against San Diego State, they will be playing for 2-0, but also something much bigger.

ASU has dedicated their upcoming game to their late coach, Frank Kush, who passed away on June 22. And in his memory, the Devils will run out of the Tillman tunnel donning helmets with their old-school sunburst logo — one that was made iconic in Tempe by many of Kush’s teams.

On the field, though, one player who plans on steamrolling over and getting past the Sun Devil defenders who occupy those sunburst helmets is SDSU running back Rashaad Penny.

Running behind the NCAA’s all-time leading rusher Donnel Pumphrey, the senior from Norwalk, California accumulated 1,018 yards a year ago. And now in the feature roll, Penny should easily eclipse his 2016 mark — already, just one game into this season, Penny ran for 197 yards on 21 carries.

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For many teams that are tasked with tackling and containing Penny, it’s like a jump-out scene in a horror movie — you know it’s coming, but can’t do anything about it. For ASU, they think they know what Penny does and how to stop him.

“They like to run the ball to the low-shade side, to the nose side and to the B-Gap,” junior defensive lineman JoJo Wicker said. “And they do a good job against teams on film where like they’ll change the call. . . They’ll audible depending on where the nose tackle is.”

Standing in the way of the ASU defensive line and getting to Penny is San Diego State’s offensive line — one that looks much different than a year ago.

The Aztecs bring in four new starters in a line that is famished of experience. By the end of last season, SDSU’s offensive line had a nice repertoire together, the five starters had compiled a total of 144 starts — they came into this year with 14.

Inexperience to that degree is almost hard to come by, but a dream for a defensive line. And Wicker seems very confident in the Devil’s ability to get by the young Aztec line.

“I’m too old for this,” Wicker said. “We’re not gonna lose, it’s not going to go down like that. We have too much experience to lose to those freshman, some of them just got out of high school — it’s not going to happen.”

The SDSU rushing attack may seem like a given, but over the last few years the SDSU defense has seemingly provided a given of their own every game. Over the last two seasons, San Diego State leads the country with 49 interceptions.

The Aztec secondary has a knack for finding the ball and ultimately shifting the momentum in a close game, making it imperative for ASU’s offense to limit their mistakes.

The Sun Devil offense, led by quarterback Manny Wilkins, seemed to be connecting on all cylinders as they took the top off of the New Mexico State defense for two long touchdowns.

Jalen Harvey‘s 53-yard touchdown up the middle and John Humphrey‘s 60-yard over-the-shoulder touchdown grab may not be there against a stout SDSU defense.

But, what will always be there for the Sun Devils is Kalen Ballage. The Devil’s versatile back may get a heavy workload Saturday, both by way of running the ball and short passes.

Most Sun Devil fans don’t like the sound of screen passes and laterals, but they may be coming. Ballage and receiver N’Keal Harry have great run-after-catch ability, setting up the possibility for a big play without putting the ball up where the instinctive Aztec defense can get it.

Next: ASU Football: Three San Diego State players to watch

This most likely won’t be another Sun Devil Stadium shoot-out, but if they can limit their turnovers and contain Penny, ASU could walk out of Tempe 2-0.