Graham Rossini says there was ‘no London hangover’ in ASU’s blowout loss to Baylor

Arizona State athletic director Graham Rossini didn’t want to use ASU’s travel to and from London as an excuse for its 55-19 home loss to Baylor last Saturday.

“We’re not about excuses. I don’t think there’s anything about the London game that influenced Baylor,” Rossini told Arizona Sports’ Burns & Gambo on Thursday. “We just got to get better, and the group has been hard at work all week getting to that point.”

ASU beat Kansas 24-17 on Sept. 19 in London, then had a bye week before its first conference home game.

Rossini’s comments are somewhat of a contradiction to what head coach Kenny Dillingham told reporters Monday. In talking about ASU’s missed tackles against Baylor, he acknowledged the possibility of the intense travel and subsequent bye week playing a factor in the Sun Devils’ lack of sharpness.

“That was definitely shocking, I’ll be honest,” Dillingham said. “It’s been something we’ve been good at — it’s usually like one game a year that kind of goes haywire for some reason — but that’s been something that’s been a core value and an elite trait for the last three years from us.

“We didn’t tackle great early. I thought we tackled better later,” he later added. “So, I think early it was like, ‘Oh well we haven’t played in two weeks.’ I didn’t practice them the week prior really, so maybe it was a little bit of a hangover potentially.”

Against Baylor, the Sun Devils missed 17 tackles, according to PFF. They missed 11 against Kansas in London — their previous high on the season — and eight against both Texas A&M and Morgan State.

Linebacker Owen Long has missed the most tackles this season with 10 (two against Baylor), while fellow linebacker Martell Hughes missed the most against Baylor (three) which put him behind Long for the most with six total on the season.

Nonetheless, Long remains the team’s leading tackler (39) with Hughes in second (29).

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