While much has gone wrong for the ASU football team (2-4, 1-2 Pac-10), coach Dennis Erickson spent the team’s last bye weekend looking at something that went right.

Erickson said he spent time studying film of ASU’s game against Stanford on Sept. 6, a contest in which the offense scored a season-high 41 points.

Replication of the offensive effort in that game could spell success for the Sun Devils when they host Oregon (5-2, 3-1) Saturday at Sun Devil Stadium.

Against the Cardinal, senior quarterback Rudy Carpenter threw for 345 yards and completed passes to nine different receivers.

Carpenter has failed to reach the 300-yard passing mark in any game since.

The Sun Devils’ victory over Stanford, a team that has fought its way to respectability this season, also featured what is arguably ASU’s most effective and balanced rushing performance of the year.

Using a combination of junior running backs Dimitri Nance and Shaun DeWitty and senior running back Keegan Herring, the Sun Devils rushed for 127 yards against a Stanford defense that is fourth in the Pac-10 against the run.

The Sun Devils have reached the 100-yard plateau only once since, a 131-yard effort in a 23-20 loss to UNLV Sept. 13.

Perhaps more telling against Stanford was the Sun Devils’ ability to produce big plays in the run game.

After keeping scoreboard operators busy with 41 points against Stanford, the Sun Devils have lacked firepower since, scoring just 44 points in the contests since.

During ASU’s 13-game campaign in 2007, the Sun Devils failed to reach the 21-point mark only once and averaged more than 32 points per game.

The Sun Devils have failed to amass more than 20 points in four consecutive games and are currently eighth in the Pac-10 in scoring offense at 19.2 points per game.

It is clear by now that this is a different season.

Last year, the Sun Devils were 7-0, with visions of a berth in a BCS bowl game on their minds as they rolled into Eugene, Oregon to face the Ducks.

“I don’t think we’re going to a BCS game,” Erickson quipped on Monday.
The coach said his team knows a win against UO would go a long way toward salvaging the season.

“We are where [we] are and we know what we need to do to get this [season going] in the right direction,” he said. There’s nothing like a win to cure some things.”

While senior quarterback Rudy Carpenter said he still believes an 8-win regular season is in the cards, a loss to the Ducks would put ASU in jeopardy of missing the postseason for the first time since 2003. ASU’s remaining schedule includes road games against two of the conference’s top teams in Oregon State and UA.

The Sun Devils have lost three straight games to UO, including a 35-23 defeat at Autzen Stadium last season that brought ASU its first loss of the season.

The Sun Devils are 8-5 all-time against the Ducks at Sun Devil Stadium.

Reach the reporter at nkosmide@asu.edu.