It could have been the game that salvaged the season.

A win could have prevented the ASU football team from tying a record for futility eight decades in the making. It could have put the squad in a bowl game.

Instead, the Sun Devils fell to Oregon State 27-25 last season after a failed two-point conversion attempt in the closing seconds on a rainy night in Corvallis, Ore. It was the sixth straight loss for a reeling ASU squad, tying a team mark set in 1929.

On Saturday, ASU will open its Pac-10 season with a rematch against OSU, a pairing that has provided plenty excitement in recent years.

In 2007, the Sun Devils faced OSU to open the Pac-10 season. It was Dennis Erickson’s first conference game as the program’s new coach, and he was facing a team he led from obscurity to the national spotlight just seven years earlier.

The result? A second-half comeback by the Sun Devils resulted in a 44-32 win that propelled ASU to a 10-2 regular-season record and a share of the Pac-10 title.

And while the Sun Devils aren’t wasting too much time looking deep into the rear-view mirror, the team recognizes the importance of starting fast in conference play.

“It’s the first step to a Pac-10 championship,” redshirt freshman Keelan Johnson said of the importance of ASU’s opening conference tilt.

“That’s what we are striving for.”

The general perception is that this season’s Pac-10 conference has enough parity to keep the crown from being handed over to the likes of USC or some other perceived power right away.

“It makes it great that [the conference] is so open this year,” Johnson said. “Everybody thought USC would win it, but then they lost to [Washington] and it gives other teams an opportunity.”

The Sun Devils (2-1, 0-0 Pac-10) know that any chance of climbing up the rungs to the top of the conference starts with a win over an OSU team (2-2, 0-1 Pac-10) that hasn’t won in Tempe since 1969.

In recent years, the Beavers have been known to start slow only to storm through the latter half of the conference schedule and end up in a quality bowl game.

This season has been no different as OSU dropped its opening Pac-10 tilt against UA last week, forcing the Beavers to once again play catch up.

It’s a role they are capable of playing, Erickson said, because of the coaches who guide them.

“They do as good, if not the best job of coaching in the country,” Erickson said of OSU coach Mike Riley and his staff. “When I talk about that I’m talking about how they prepare for games and who they have in their program. They have guys in their program that fit into what they want to do. They play their rear ends off — they believe in what they’re doing.”

Two of those players that fit into the Riley system are a couple of brothers from Texas. Sophomore Jacquizz Rodgers and his brother James Rodgers make the OSU offense tick.

Last season, Jacquizz Rodgers scorched the Sun Devil defense for 143 yards rushing while brother James caught eight passes for 102 yards.

With the pair ranked first and second in the conference, respectively, in total offense, it is clear sibling rivalry has turned into sibling productivity for the Beavers.

“We have our hands full and our players know that,” Erickson said.

For all the firepower OSU possesses on offense, though, senior quarterback Danny Sullivan knows the performance of his own offensive unit will be the determining factor in whether ASU can be a Pac-10 contender.

One thing fans should be able to count on from the Sun Devils is positive disparity in the turnover department – where ASU is ranked first in the nation – due in large part to Sullivan’s approach to his duties under center.

“That is what I’ve been told to do, manage the game,” Sullivan said.
“The one thing I’m doing is, if a guy is not there and I don’t have anything, then I’m throwing it away. I am not trying to force anything.”

Kickoff for Saturday’s game is set for 4 p.m. and will be aired on the Versus. It will be first game the Sun Devils have played on the network.

Reach the reporter at nkosmide@asu.edu.