ASU Football: Did the Devils get caught looking ahead (again)?

They had their bowl berth all but locked up. They were in the driver’s seat of the Pac-12 South. They had a date with Arizona in a Territorial Cup that may have had the same implications as 2014.

ASU football had their destiny penciled in before the USC game. But there was one problem:

They still had USC.

And despite their embarrassing 48-17 loss to the 21st-ranked Trojans, the Sun Devils’ goals and expectations have yet to vanish. But for the time being, they seem to be on hold.

Given the recent success ASU had going into its matchup with USC (wins over No. 5 Washington and Utah) and the Trojans 49-14 loss to Notre Dame a week ago, timing and momentum seemed to be lining up an ASU win.

But all that taken into account, many around the country still see ASU as USC’s little brother. The Trojans were ranked, they were favored in Vegas, they have the better athletes and they have the stud quarterback who seems to be on the wish list for a majority of NFL teams.

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So, the fact that the Sun Devils lost probably wasn’t a surprise to many, but the manner in which they did was. And comments from head coach Todd Graham post game made it seem that ASU wasn’t ready to play possibly its most important game in three years.

“We were really, really poor. We did a poor job coaching and preparing,” Graham said. “We obviously did not get our guys prepared the way we needed to and that’s our responsibility. We did not play well.”

In a game that saw ASU resort back to old habits on defense, including missed tackles and blown coverage downfield, the loss itself was an old habit.

Call it looking ahead. Call it not being prepared to play big games. At this point in the six-year Todd Graham era, ASU fans probably each have their own word for it – because, heck, they’ve seen it enough.

Graham’s 10-12 record against AP top-25 teams is more than admirable, it’s remarkable. His Sun Devil teams have had big wins before – one this year with the victory over No. 5 Washington and another in 2014 with a win over No. 10 Notre Dame.

But, it’s those ‘program vaulting games’ that ASU has either failed to participate in or answer the call in.

Maybe it comes with the foundation and expectation of “speaking victory” that Graham has tried to implement during his time in Tempe that sees the program as a whole look on to bigger and better things.

Many of the 69,535 fans that packed Sun Devil Stadium ahead of the 2013 Pac-12 Championship Game started to smell roses. Others eyed quite possibly the biggest Territorial Cup game ever before ASU went up to Corvallis in 2014 to play Oregon State.

Other examples are easy to find. You can cite that 2014 game in Tucson and to a lesser extent the 2015 season-opener against Texas A&M in Houston and ultimately Saturday’s game against the Trojans.

In each instance, the result was the same – a Sun Devil loss. And even before each of those games began, ASU had the same thing.

An opportunity.

They had the opportunity, even if it was just for a short while, to break out of the hole of irrelevance – to have the chance to go to Rose Bowls, Fiesta Bowls, Pac-12 Championship Games.

For a program that is so centered around its tradition and history, Graham and Co. have put themselves so close to drastically adding to that in a positive way. They could’ve been part of an era that produced an abundance of those reunion teams — the teams whose accomplishments were so great they have to be honored every 10 years.

ASU has produced great teams and greats moments since Graham showed up in 2012, but they haven’t gotten over the hump. In short, I don’t think we’ll be seeing a reunion of the 2013 Holiday Bowl team.

Next: The song remains the same: USC dominates ASU

And that brings us back to Saturday’s game – call it whatever you may, but for an ASU program trying to regain national relevance, it was just another missed opportunity.