ASU Football: Struggling offense heads to L.A. to face wounded USC team

After committing a slew of self inflicting mistakes, ASU football‘s offense faces off against a USC team missing its top defensive stalwart.

To sum up ASU’s performance on the offensive side of the ball last weekend, the first word that comes up is the word disappointment.

With a returning fifth-year senior at quarterback and one of the best wide receivers in the country on the outside, the strength of the Sun Devils in 2018 heading into the season looked to be on the offensive side of the football.

That has been far from the case.

Failing to score 20 or more points for the second time this season, ASU’s offense has been dormant for the majority of the season.

When excluding the two 49-plus point performances against UTSA and Oregon State, the Sun Devils have averaged a meager 18.2 points per contest.

Some weeks, the offense looked to be pass oriented. In other weeks, the running game seemed to be the only thing working.

Quarterback Manny Wilkins has as many 40-plus pass attempt games as he does 20-27 pass attempt contests.

Running back Eno Benjamin has three contests in which he has 26 or more rushing attempts. But also has four games where he failed to record more than 16 carries.

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Couple the inconsistency with three turnovers last week and the end result is a weak 13-point performance against a Stanford team coming off of two straight losses.

A weak performance against Stanford on the offensive side of the football still makes ASU’s problems on that end pale in comparison to USC’s inexperienced attack.

Starting quarterback JT Daniels is coming off of a concussion from the previous week. Even without the concussion, the true freshman has been far from solid with a mediocre 57.1 percent completion percentage and seven interceptions.

Combine Daniel’s mediocrity with a new feature back and no star weapon and the result so far has been the No. 88 scoring offense in the country.

These two floundering offenses will face off against a pair of interesting defenses.

On the one hand, ASU defensive coordinator Danny Gonzales has transformed the Sun Devils defense in one of the stronger units in the country.

ASU is surrendering nearly 12 points per game less than they did last season under Phil Bennett. The Sun Devils are giving up less yards on the ground, in the air and, obviously, overall than they did a season ago.

USC’s defense on the other hand will be missing their top linebacker in Porter Gustin for the season with a fractured ankle and the Trojans second leading tackler John Houston Jr. is questionable for this week.

The Trojans were already struggling this season to stop points from getting up on the board allowing 27.4 points per contest this season.

With home field advantage, the Trojans will be favored especially when considering ASU’s winless record away from Tempe.

Seven point defeats to San Diego State, Washington and Colorado away from home have bred a feeling reminiscent of “Groundhog Day” among ASU fans.

The Sun Devils upcoming schedule after this week includes home matchups against 23rd ranked Utah and a hot UCLA team followed by back-to-back road games to finish the season in Eugene against No.19 Oregon and in Tucson for a heated rivalry game against Arizona.

Given the many challenges ahead, if the Sun Devils have any hopes of making a bowl game in 2018, a win at the Coliseum is imperative.