Following loss to San Diego State, it’s tough to find many wins for ASU
Arizona State's inability to take advantage of a winnable game against San Diego State could doom them with a difficult Pac-12 schedule on the way.
Arizona State's Manny Wilkins, middle, loses control of the football as he tries to throw a pass against San Diego State during the second half of an NCAA college football game Saturday, Sept. 9, 2017, in Tempe, Ariz. San Diego State defeated Arizona State 30-20. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
(AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
TEMPE, Ariz. — Arizona State honored former coach Frank Kush before Saturday’s game against San Diego State by painting the classic Sunburst logo at midfield. The Sun Devils also wore the logo on their helmets.
Coach Todd Graham said in his pregame radio spot that Kush would have enjoyed the game about to be played at Sun Devil Stadium because it was destined to be old fashioned, smash-mouthed football.
Unfortunately for the Devils, it was San Diego State that brought the physical play, not ASU. The Aztecs rushed for 279 yards — 216 by running back Rashaad Penny — and their impressive defense held ASU to 44 rushing yards to post a 30-20 win.
“Obviously, a very disappointing night,” ASU coach Todd Graham said. “We wanted to a lot better job of honoring Frank tonight with this game. You’ve got to give them credit. They did a good job. We did a very, very poor job. We did a poor job of coaching and a poor job of executing and playing.”
It was San Diego State’s first win over ASU in 12 tries (1-10-1) and the loss raised fair questions about ASU’s ability to manage the rest of its schedule.
The Devils face Texas Tech (1-0) next week in a nonconference road game before opening a murderous Pac-12 stretch against Oregon, Stanford, Washington, Utah, USC, Colorado and UCLA. Those seven teams are a combined 13-1.
“The season isn’t over,” defiant quarterback Manny Wilkins said, taking umbrage to a reporter’s question about how the Devils would bounce back from this loss. “That was like a your-season’s-over question. It’s just go to the next game and just go play ball and that’s what we’re here to do. Sometimes you’re gonna lose a game. It’s gonna happen. You’ve just got to go to the next game.”
San Diego State (2-0) is a good football team. The Aztecs have won back-to-back Mountain West Conference titles and Penny is legitimate running back. That said, the Sun Devils have a host of issues to fix before they travel to Lubbock, Texas.
Their offensive line couldn’t open holes for running back Kalen Ballage. Ballage played sparingly late because Graham said he was nicked up, and backfield mate Demario Richard was unavailable due to a knee injury. Through two games, the offense has no identity.
The defense couldn’t get off the field on third down despite putting the Aztecs in a number of third-and-long situations.
The specials teams allowed a 99-yard kickoff return by Penny, and injured punter Michel Sleep-Dalton’s 12-yard punt late in the first half allowed San Diego State to tack on a field goal for a 20-14 halftime lead, thanks also to poor clock management by the Sun Devils offense.
“It was a disaster special teams-wise,” Graham said. “Field position was huge for us and I think that was a really big factor.”
Despite all those issues, ASU had a chance to take the lead early in the third quarter when deep threat John Humphrey got a step on his defender and Wilkins put a ball on the mark in the end zone. It slipped through Humphrey’s hands, ASU failed on a fourth down play and San Diego State took advantage of a short field and a blown coverage to take a 27-14 lead on Penny’s 33-yard touchdown catch.
“All those things add up,” defensive lineman Tashon Smallwood said. “Add up to a loss.”
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Comments
18 Comments
Coach Graham needs to go and we need to start getting Blake Barnett some reps.
The amount of large plays that the Devils have given up over the last 3 years have become exhausting.
My 1-11 prediction is looking pretty solid right now.
Only thing that might rescue the season, is benching Wilkins and giving Blake Barnett every rep for the rest of the year until Brady White comes back. I lay the offensive line problems completely at Manny's feet, because of his inability to change the play or formation or line scheme, to put them in more advantageous play.
On every play I saw where a sack resulted, Manny had easy, quickly made formation, play or blocking scheme changes he could have made that would have kept him from upright. Yet again this week, he never made any of them. I think its nearly impossible for a QB to function, if he is unable to see his offensive line's vulnerability and then try to fix it, but that's exactly what is happening to Manny.
Manny is always going to struggle in any pocket, because he knows that being unable to fix things. Having to play QB where you know you could get smashed at any second fosters panic, especially after you've been hit by those large, strong people who are intent on hurting you. In order to feel safe, a QB must know what his options are inside the pocket and he must understand how the defense in front of him works, so he is not surprised, because surprises are what can get you killed.
A QB has to know where and how any defense will attack him in the pocket as well as how he should attack them, and then learn how to anticipate each attack. He has to know where he is at risk, where he is strongest, when he should step up. In 2 seasons of watching Manny, I haven't seen him ever do anything to help his offensive line help him, yet on every play defenses are attacking him. It makes complete sense to me why the offensive line has played so horribly for Manny.
After 2 seasons, its obvious Manny just doesn't have the QB skill set to be able to lead this team to anything close to a winning record. Love his loyalty, courage and how he never complains, but its time to try something new.
Time to also change the offense, because nothing that I saw last year or this year demonstrates this offense was trying to take what the defense was giving them. Since that's Napier's offensive philosophy, and Manny's still never doing that, not sure how the coaching staff can justify him playing anymore. He's been given 2 seasons worth of games, and for whatever reason, he shows no interest in going thru his progressions, and instead, locks in on his primary receiver at the snap, announcing his intentions to the entire defense, then makes throws that have a very low rate of success.
Fact is, when the ball is in the air for a long period of time, bad things tend to happen for the offense. All night, Manny had receivers wide open he could have found if he had gone thru his progressions, easy throws that could have resulted in big plays. For Manny to be winding up, throwing Hail Mary length throws that have really little chance of success, into coverage, sometimes double coverage, when it's not either halftime or and the end of the game, is dangerous and makes no sense. More importantly such throws would be totally against what ASU repeatedly has practiced all season, which is high percentage throws, with almost no risk of turnover.
Winning QBs make smart decisions, selecting alternatives which give their teams their best chance at success. Smart decisions win football games. QBs that don't make smart decisions tend to lose, shouldn't get playing time, and definitely don't deserve to start.
This hurts.
What has happened to this once proud program?
How can you not have experienced returnees?
3-8? Maybe?? But who are those other two?
Will Graham even finish?