Danny Sullivan said he has had the video of Saturday’s game-winning touchdown pass against Washington posted on his Facebook profile and e-mailed to him.

But a reminder really isn’t necessary for the senior quarterback.

“I don’t need YouTube — I’ve replayed it in my mind over and over again,” Sullivan said. “[It was] pretty insane. It’s going to be one of the greatest plays for both [senior wide receiver Chris McGaha and my] careers, for this team [and] maybe for this university.”

Sullivan, who was in a noticeably more chipper mood during Monday’s press conference, said he felt like he got a monkey off his back with the throw with five ticks left that gave the ASU football team a 24-17 win over the Huskies.

“I was pretty emotional on the field, that’s for sure,” Sullivan said. “Everything that happened in that Oregon State game got a little justice. I have no words to even describe my emotions after that. I ran over to the other sideline and pointed up to my dad, and he was happy for me, [and] my mom was so happy.”

The renewed attitude can also be applied to the entire Sun Devil team, ASU coach Dennis Erickson said.

“When you win, it’s always a lot more fun,” Erickson said. “You get up Sunday morning, and it’s a little different attitude. The biggest thing is winning a game like that, even though maybe it wasn’t pretty other than the last play, [is] it gives you confidence. It makes you believe you can play with anybody, and we feel like we can do that and we’ve been working hard.”

For the first time all season, the ASU offense took a huge step forward from the Washington State game to the UW game. The Sun Devils amassed 464 yards of total offense, including 169 yards rushing and a season-best passing efficiency of 132.55 from Sullivan.

“It’s a lot different feeling than it was a year ago in that I see us improving all the time and see us getting better offensively,” Erickson said. “We struggled so much last year, for whatever reason, offensively.

When you see yourself getting better, then you know there’s hope to win every game that’s left, so that’s a good feeling as a football team.”

Included in the offensive outburst was the creativity of a couple trick plays in the first half—a 30-yard reverse by redshirt freshman wide receiver T.J. Simpson and a reverse pass by senior wide receiver Kyle Williams — that either directly or indirectly led to a Sun Devil touchdown.

“Kyle is going to brag about how he has a better quarterback rating than I do — he might have the best quarterback rating in the nation,” Sullivan said. “We’ve had them [those trick plays] for a while, [so] to pull them out in one game really was fun. It took some pressure off us, and it was just guys playing loose and having fun out there.”

After drawing eight penalties in the first half, including three personal fouls by freshman linebacker Vontaze Burfict, the Sun Devils committed just one in the second half on an excessive celebration call on the game-winning play.

“I mentioned it very lightly — I was very low-key, I guess you could say,” Erickson said with a laugh. “I don’t think anybody recorded it, but you never know with all those YouTubes and MySpace and You-space and outer space and all that stuff that they have. We’re shooting ourselves in the foot as we get those, and it’s ridiculous to put yourself in that position when you’re playing as well as we were playing.”

With debut of wide receiver Jamal Miles on Saturday, ASU has now played 18 true freshmen in the past two seasons.

“We’ve got two or three really good young classes,” Erickson said.
“Fortunately or unfortunately, they’re all playing, and they’re playing pretty well. I’m happy with that group. It probably would have been very easy to go entirely the junior college way, particularly when you’re getting your head beat in occasionally, but that’s not how it’s going to be here.”

When the Sun Devils hit the road for Stanford this weekend, it will be a homecoming for Sullivan. The senior quarterback, who played at nearby Los Gatos High School in Los Gatos, Calif., is expecting about 200 friends and family in attendance in his first chance to play in the Bay Area since arriving at ASU.

“I’ve gotten calls from all my friends back home saying they’re going to go,” Sullivan said. “I’ve kind of had this one circled on my schedule for a while, because it’s my only chance to show people what I’ve transformed myself into and what I can do for ASU.”

Injury notes

Senior running back Dimitri Nance suffered a sprained knee in Saturday’s game, but Erickson does not expect it to be a serious injury.

Sophomore offensive lineman Matt Hustad is expected to return from a knee injury this week, while sophomore offensive lineman Garth Gerhart (toe) is very questionable to play against Stanford, Erickson said.

Junior cornerback Omar Bolden (knee) is questionable for Saturday’s game, while sophomore guard Zach Schlink (knee) is not expected to play, Erickson said.

Erickson said he also expects junior kicker Thomas Weber, who missed two second-half field goals against UW, to “be a lot better than he was” this week after returning from a groin injury against the Huskies.

“He missed some kicks to the right, and as you look at it, it was more [of him] kind of guarding,” Erickson said.

Reach the reporter at gina.mizell@asu.edu.