ASU Football: Improvement from Wilkins has turned into wins

The fifth-year senior has turned it around in the last three weeks for ASU football, who his now bowl-bound.

Manny Wilkins had a sparkle in his eye, an extra hop in his step and a smile on his face as he approached the podium.

Sitting below, crawled up in a hoodie and jeans, was me getting out my phone to record another weekly press conference from the Sun Devils top signal-caller.

“You look comfortable,” Wilkins said to a likely blank-faced college sophomore in myself. Bewildered and still figuring out whether the redshirt senior was speaking to me, I couldn’t quite grasp why Wilkins was in such a good mood.

But then the obvious dawned on me.

Wilkins’ Sun Devils are on a three-game winning streak, are two wins away from competing for a Pac-12 title and three victories short of playing in a Rose Bowl for only the third time in school history.

Why wouldn’t he be in a cheery mood?

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“At the beginning of the season when all of our goals were in front of us, when we had a chance to do something special, when that was taken away from us, our attitude was like ‘Damn, well now we’re playing to go to a bowl (game),” Wilkins said. “Now we have an opportunity (to go to a Pac-12 championship game) in our hands, we control it.

“Now what are we going to do with it?”

During ASU’s winning streak, the Sun Devils’ man under center has thrown five touchdowns while completing over 70 percent of his passes in the last two weeks. Not throwing for very many yards, Wilkins has been efficient in an offense that has been run-centric in recent weeks.

Against Utah two weeks ago, Wilkins sported a 211.8 passer rating, the highest of his career with the Utes at the time being the No.15 team in the nation.

“What I like is his ability to come back,” coach Herm Edwards said of Wilkins. “He’s played well.”

Prior to the Sun Devils’ current win streak, Wilkins’ performances were spotty at best during a span of four losses in five games.

At Washington, he threw for a frighteningly low 104 yards. At Colorado, he only completed 12 passes. And against Stanford, Wilkins threw no touchdowns, an interception, fumbled and botched the final drive of the game.

But those past miscues are now behind him.

“When something bad happens, go to the next play,” Wilkins said. “That’s something that I’ve always (had) in my head and that I think about when anything negative happens.”

Instead of moving on to “the next play,” Wilkins has been able to move on to the next game, proving that his mid-season swoon was nothing more than a hiccup.

When Wilkins left the podium, 16 minutes and 37 seconds had passed since the time he commented on my apparent coziness.

It was the longest amount of time he had been at the podium this year since the Wednesday following ASU’s loss to San Diego State.

dark. Next. ASU Football: Behind Oregon’s recent struggles

The quarterback was in a talkative mood. And with his team’s recent success, how could you blame him?

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

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