ASU seeing ‘red’ after game at Illinois
Sep 19, 2011, 8:56 PM | Updated: 9:57 pm
Coaches and players watch game film each week — some more than others — and some will watch the same film several times.
“It’s until I feel I got out of the tape what I need,” ASU quarterback Brock Osweiler explained Monday.
He watched the film from Saturday’s loss in Illinois once. Then he watched it again. And then a third time.
“This morning I woke up and felt like there were still some things that needed to be looked at and so I came in and took care of that.”
What stood out?
“Obviously we left points out on the field,” he said. “There were numerous times where we should have came away with at least a field goal if not a touchdown.”
Head coach Dennis Erickson noticed the same thing.
“With the opportunities that we had — with turnovers and how well we played on defense, we had so many opportunities in the red zone and we didn’t hardly get any points out of the thing; and that’s the bottom line as far as that game is concerned. I mean we’re better than that.”
ASU advanced the ball inside the Illinois 20-yard line three times yet only scored one touchdown. There was an interception on the team’s first trip inside the red zone and then a missed field goal before the Sun Devils were finally able to punch it in with Osweiler scoring on a 14-yard run early in the fourth quarter.
“We just didn’t do things that we normally do,” said Osweiler, who felt the team had its share of what he called mental breakdowns during the game. “You call a play ten times, nine times I guarantee you we do it a different way. And for whatever reason that night we just did it the other way.”
“Offensively,” added Erickson, “you wish for a game like that where you get field position like we had it. I can’t sugarcoat it. There’s no way to sugarcoat it. You’ve got to score points.”
