ASU Football: Devils face tough test in No. 15 Michigan State

After an impressive 49-7 win over UTSA, ASU football hosts No. 15 Michigan State in their biggest non-conference game in three years.

The Arizona State football team was dominant in Week One.

In their first game under new defensive coordinator Danny Gonzales, the Sun Devils limited UTSA to 220 yards on offense.

Despite a dominating victory in the ASU’s opening matchup against UTSA 49-7, defensive coordinator Danny Gonzales still believes the team isn’t that good. Yet.

“When you get complacent and everybody’s patting you on the shoulder, it’s really easy to think you’re better than you are,” Gonzales said.

While the Sun Devils may not have reached their full potential in week one, they will get a chance to prove just how good they are as they take on No. 15 Michigan State in Tempe Saturday night.

MSU will enter the game after what was a disappointing opening game for a team with hopes of making the College Football Playoff. The Spartans squeaked past Utah State 38-31 and dropped in the AP poll, as a result, moving down four spots from No. 11.

While Week One was a lackluster performance for Michigan State, the Spartans boast one of the most experienced teams in the nation with 10 returning starters on offense alone.

This combined with a strong running attack and defense makes them a team that can compete with the best in the nation on a week to week basis.

“Their experience. What travels well in football is a good running game and a good defense,” head coach Herm Edwards said.

The rushing attack will be lead by the duo of senior running back LJ Scott and Phoenix native and quarterback of the Spartans Brian Lewerke. The pair combined for 1,457 on the ground a season ago and will look to control the pace of play on the ground.

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Michigan State will look to attack ASU on the ground and control the clock burning off as much time as they can. The Spartans attack is built to keep the explosive players on the offensive side of the ball in Manny Wilkins, and N’Keal Harry off of the field.

“They want to run the ball,” Gonzales said. “They want to shorten the game. We’re going to try hard and make them throw it.”

MSU also boasts a formidable passing attack behind the arm of Lewerke. The junior quarterback threw for 287 yards through the air against Utah State and will look to use his legs to extend plays.

Gonzales called Lewerke a “special player” who the Sun Devils will have to contain from extending plays.

Arizona State will look to duplicate their offensive production from a week ago after putting up 49 points and over 500 yards of total offense. The offense was led by Wilkins and Harry as finishing with 237 yards passing and 140 yards receiving respectively.

The Sun Devils will look to spread the ball around more than they did a week ago. Harry had three times as many catches as the next closest receiver as he finished the game with six and Darby finished second with two.

Offensively, ASU will look to convert more third downs this week as they finished against UTSA with a 30 percent third-down conversion rate but did finish 2-2 on fourth down.

After shuffling of the offensive linemen took place all offseason, ASU did not allow a sack during the victory over UTSA.

“We had zero sacks tonight,” Wilkins said following the UTSA game. “I can’t recall the last time that happened here, really proud of how those guys up front, they busted their butts all camp to be ready and prepared for this.”

On the defensive side of the ball, the Devils will look to continue to use a variety of contributors after 26 players finished last game with at least one tackle.

Week one is a week full of adjustments for every college football program and is rarely a true testament of how the rest of the season will go. This will be a telling matchup as the result of this game will most likely determine how the rest of the season will go.

All quotes in this article were obtained firsthand by Devils in Detail unless otherwise noted.

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