West Virginia offense poses unique challenges for ASU with true freshman QB Scotty Fox Jr.

TEMPE — Arizona State has faced almost every kind of quarterback this season, but Saturday will be its first time facing a true-freshman starter in West Virginia’s Scotty Fox Jr.

Fox is the fourth quarterback to start games for the Mountaineers this year (four starts), following Valley prep product Nicco Marchiol (four), Jaylen Henderson (one) and Khalil Wilkins (one).

No matter who’s been under center, though, the offense has had all the hallmarks of a Rich Rodriguez offense with a spread run game utilizing the signal caller and all kinds of misdirection.

The difference with Fox is how effective the Mountaineer passing game has been, after he knocked off the jitters in his first start.

Two of the team’s three games of at least 200 passing yards have come from Fox, and he has four passing touchdowns in the last three games when West Virginia had four over its first six games combined.

“He throws to open receivers really, really well,” ASU defensive coordinator Brian Ward said Tuesday. “He throws a beautiful deep ball, and he’s really efficient in terms of creating explosives.

“It’s a great program philosophy and the quarterback is managing the game. They’re going to run the quarterback, they’re going to direct run the quarterback when they need them to. If they feel like they’re slowing down, their answer to it is on the quarterback.”

Fox has taken double-digit carries in each of his starts so far, averaging 43.3 yards per game without including the 15.5 sack yards per game.

ASU head coach Kenny Dillingham on Monday said West Virginia (4-6, 2-5 in Big 12) brings a stylistically different approach to the run game, even from what the Sun Devils have seen in Utah, Houston and others.

Those tactics might be added in because of how ASU has struggled against the ground game, Ward suggested.

“They’re going to try to take advantage of what we’ve struggled with in the past or things that we haven’t had success with,” the DC said. “So we’ve done a big job of self-scouting ourselves and … we’re not going to get beat by it twice, hopefully.

“They’re going to have some wrinkles for us, and we’re going to have to come up with adjustments.”

On that same front, Rodriguez is aware ASU (6-3, 4-2 in Big 12) is coming off a bye week and that might lend itself to more diversions from previous plans.

“Sometimes when you come out after a team had an open date, you gotta be ready for something different early,” Rodriguez told reporters. “They may do something tricky on special teams or on offense, or they may show you a different coverage or front that you haven’t worked on.

“You gotta be prepared for the stuff they haven’t shown from a self-scout standpoint, but that’s kind of typical.”

The Mountaineers have scored more over the past two games (37 points per game) than in any other two-game span this season, so the offense may be peaking as it heads into Tempe.

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