ASU Football: Sun Devils not taking Oregon State lightly

Despite being a 21.5 point favorite, ASU football is erring on the side of caution before facing 1-3 Oregon State.

Manny Wilkins isn’t having any part of a midseason collapse.

“I refuse to let this team fall apart this early in the season,” he said during Wednesday’s media availability. “If [our] guys think this is going to be a cakewalk game, we can’t have that around the locker room.”

That’s the mentality that Wilkins – and head coach Herm Edwards – have expressed before facing Oregon State. Outside of the Beavers’ 23-point victory against Southern Utah, they’ve been blown out by an average of 23 points per game.

But Edwards and the ASU coaching staff won’t look at it like that. They’ll prepare through the perspective of their opponent averaging 32 points per game.

“They have an offense that creates a lot of explosive plays,” Edwards said. “They’ve got explosive plays of 30 yards or more 20 times. So, this team offensively does some things that give you problems.”

“Statistically, they put up a lot of really good numbers,” added defensive coordinator Danny Gonzales. “They scored a bunch of points against Ohio State. They’ve done a really nice job of moving the football. It’ll be a great contest.”

After winning their first two games and receiving an AP Top 25 ranking, the Sun Devils have skidded with two consecutive losses. In the defeats, areas of question have turned into those of concern.

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At the time of their No. 23 ranking, ASU held the nation’s top run defense while holding opponents to 10 points per game. Against San Diego State and Washington, the Sun Devils gave up an average of 27.5 points and 241 rushing yards in back-to-back 7-point losses.

Offensively, the team hasn’t found a rhythm like the end of 2017. ASU’s running game rebounded with 164 yards on 40 carries against the Huskies, but Wilkins struggled while throwing for 104 yards and no touchdowns.

The senior quarterback had inaccuracies with the deep ball and only found star wide receiver N’Keal Harry for five receptions for 104 yards. Despite the struggles, Wilkins said the team is in a “good place” heading into week five.

“Now it’s just about winning those close games that we haven’t won,” Wilkins said. “It’s just about staying focused on the end goal.”

Over the next seven weeks, the Sun Devils will enter perhaps their most important stretch of the season. Four of the team’s six games will be at home, including three of four games at Sun Devil Stadium against Pac-12 opponents.

It’s likely that if ASU can win a majority of those games, they’ll be able to compete for a spot in the conference championship game. As Wilkins said, the season has a lot left to bring.

But they’ll have to work through what’s broken them the last through weeks. Gonzales has been critical of his defense, but reiterated today he still sees potential in them.

“We had some success in weeks one and two, because one, the very first game we were better than the team we played,” Gonzales said. “Week two, we had a significant advantage in 105 degrees, and those guys got tired. They had never seen our scheme before.”

“I thought Washington had a really good plan. They did some delay stuff that if we were a little more experienced in this scheme, it wouldn’t work because we’d have safeties flying through there and somebody would’ve ended up with broken ribs. Oregon State will do some of that stuff. I hope we can send somebody through there and that’ll happen. We’ll see.”

In this case, the gap between Arizona State and Oregon State may seem just as large. But to Edwards, it all comes down to which team is going to come out with their first conference victory.

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“They’re a team, that like us, that is trying to win a Pac-12 game,” Edwards said. “We know what’s at stake. This is a game that we need to win. We’re going to have to play a really good game at home to win our first Pac-12 game.”

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