Arizona State Sun Devils ‘don’t pay attention to’ playoff poll
Nov 12, 2014, 4:48 PM | Updated: 6:29 pm
TEMPE, Ariz. — A five-spot jump after beating Utah.
A three-spot move after handling Notre Dame.
Arizona State continues to make an impression on the College Football Playoff Committee, which ranked the Sun Devils sixth in its latest poll released on Tuesday.
What does it all mean? Not much, according to starting left tackle and team captain Jamil Douglas.
“We don’t pay attention to it,” he said, prior to the poll’s unveiling. “I think that’s the good thing about this team. We don’t care about stats. We don’t care about rankings. We just want to go out every Saturday and handle our business.”
Redshirt junior cornerback Lloyd Carrington agrees.
“The main thing,” he said, “we just come out, we take care of our business like we’re supposed to, everything will take care of itself.”
Mississippi State, Oregon, Florida State, TCU and Alabama sit ahead of the Sun Devils.
The 12-person selection committee will choose the four playoff teams on Dec. 7.
“It’s better than what we had last year,” said head coach Todd Graham, a big proponent of the bowl system.
And though he’s excited about the upcoming playoff, Graham said he hoped that the new format would be eventually tweaked to recognize the conference champion. “It should mean something to win the conference championship,” he said. “It does in every other sport and every other league.
“That way the fans can get what they want. We will play Michigan State, Texas A&M. We can play whatever non-conference (games) we want. We don’t have to worry about how many games (other conferences) are playing. Are they playing a championship game, not playing a championship game? The conference champion of the Pac-12 should be in the playoff. The conference champion of the SEC should be in the playoff. Right? And so that would be increasing it to eight teams and you’d have five major conference champions and three at-large bids.”
Being one of the first two out with still a month remaining in the regular season “doesn’t matter,” Graham said. “We’re going to play the games.”
ASU (8-1) would appear to be in good shape to secure a spot in the playoff if they can keep winning.
Saturday, the Sun Devils visit Oregon State.
“Of course it’s exciting,” Douglas said. “You like to see where you’re going to be at (in the rankings), but at the same time, if you keep winning, there’s no way they can keep you out of it. That’s what we focus on.”
