ESPN’s Mark May diminishes ASU’s win over Washington

It was an important game for both teams.

In fact, last Saturday’s game in Tempe was labeled as the most important game of the year by Washington head coach Steve Sarkisian.

For the Arizona State Sun Devils, it was a chance to beat a quality team — something they had failed to do in previous tries against Notre Dame and Stanford.

The Sun Devils not only won the game, but trounced their visitors from the Pacific Northwest, breezing to a 53-24 win. The ASU defense shut down Washington’s Bishop Sankey, who came into the game as the nation’s leading rusher. Sankey had just 22 yards on 13 carries.

Impressive, right?

Maybe to some, but not all — including ESPN college football analyst Mark May.

“Not so fast,” May told Burns and Gambo on Arizona Sports 620 Tuesday. “If you recall what I said last week, I said emotionally, we’re going to check and see if (Washington) is ready. Because after being pummeled by Oregon and Stanford in consecutive weeks, two of the better teams in the country, emotionally, they were spent.

“The first couple series, they were OK. After that, as soon as something happened that was bad to them, on the road, they fell apart. They should have, because physically they weren’t 100 percent coming off those two games. But on paper, it looks like a good win for Arizona State.”

When challenged by Burns, who suggested May was saying that the result was more about UW’s failure than it was about ASU’s excellence, May responded.

“If they would have played the Washington team before they played Oregon and Stanford, do you really think the outcome would have been the same,” he asked.

Follow @Vincemarotta