Graham has optimism for ASU heading into closing stretch

November is here, and with it comes an unexpected winning Pac-12 record for Arizona State.

The Sun Devils are coming off a rough loss against No. 17 USC, who completely dismantled ASU, 48-17. The Trojans dominated ball control, running 20 more plays on offense and had almost twice as many first downs.

“We’ve been playing 42 snaps in each of the first halves that we been successful with the other team having 20 plays,” Arizona State head coach Todd Graham said on 98.7 FM Arizona’s Sports Station’s Doug & Wolf Friday. “They kind of flipped the script on us. They kept making first downs.”

Looking forward with the Sun Devils at 3-2 in Pac-12 play, ASU has a chance to boost that record with sub-par conference foes, including Colorado (2-4), UCLA (2-3) and Oregon State (0-5) in the next three weeks.

Graham is optimistic where his team is at heading into November games.

“You play the game, you play the season to get to November,” Graham said. “Hopefully you’re still alive in November. We’re still alive in November.”

USC (5-1) and Arizona (4-1) sit atop the Pac-12 South standings. Those two teams meet Saturday in Los Angeles. Even if ASU were to win out, they’d need help from others to get a spot in the conference championship game.

At the start of the season, there were many questions swirling around about the future of Graham and ASU football.

Thought to be on the hot seat, the coach has delivered upset wins this season against then-ranked No. 5 Washington, then-No. 24 Oregon and a road win over Utah which broke a seven-game Pac-12 road losing streak.

Last week’s loss to USC slowed the Sun Devils’ surprising progress, but Graham remains optimistic with four games left.

“Our season, 2017, will be defined by what we do in the next four weeks,” Graham said. “If we can’t do anything about anybody else. We can go and beat Colorado.”

ASU takes on Colorado on Saturday at 6:00 p.m. You can catch the action on 98.7 FM Arizona’s Sports Station.