There are some things you just can’t explain.

Like how a team can manage to cause an inconceivable four straight turnovers (five total) and convert zero points off of them.

Like how a team, which sported the nation’s top kicker in 2007, can have three kicks blocked after just six games.

Or like how it’s always something different.

Against UNLV earlier this season, the ASU football team ran too much, and against Georgia, not enough.

Against Cal it was those preventable turnovers, and against USC it was the offense’s complete ineptitude.

Coach Dennis Erickson can’t figure out what’s wrong with this team either.

"I don't know if I've ever been around an offensive performance like that in my career,” he said Saturday, post-loss. “I’m perplexed.”

Sounds an awful lot like senior quarterback Rudy Carpenter after ASU’s loss to Cal a week before.

“I’m like you guys, I’m trying to find the answer,” he told reporters. “If I had the answers to what it is that we were supposed to do … we’d be doing it already.”

Perhaps it really is one great mystery. But much like an archaeologist trying to discover how the pyramids were built, let’s give this our best shot ... and, luckily, it turns out it’s not as complicated as the pyramids.

The answer: There’s no variety.

The presence alone of Erickson and offensive coordinator Rich Olson promised a unique offense that would, at times, sport four and five-wide receiver sets, all to promote the team’s best asset: Its passing game.

That has rarely happened.

Let’s not throw Olson under the bus, not yet anyway. The problems ASU has had with its offensive line has forced Olson to call more conservative offensive sets.

But this concession has minimized the offensive line problems like an air freshener over an unsavory, overpowering smell: It just hasn’t worked.

How honest are opposing linebackers going to be when the Sun Devils rush for just 75 yards against USC, 71 yards against Cal and a pathetic 4 yards against Georgia?

It’s time to be more creative. Mix up the offensive schemes. Carpenter – or whoever ASU’s quarterback is – will be rushed in and out of the pocket anyways.

Sometimes an atypical approach is the right approach, so let the pass establish the run. Spread the offense enough and opposing teams will be forced to make critical decisions.

The team’s season isn’t over, not by a long shot.

While it’s easy to get lost in this four-game losing streak, there is still half of a season left to play.

Just as Erickson explained, this team still has a lot going for it; ASU just has to, once and for all, move past all of the disappointment.

And that’s one thing we can all agree on.

Reach the reporter at joshua.spivack@asu.edu.