It's easy to come up with questions about the ASU football team after its 48-13 loss to Oregon Saturday.
What went wrong? How? What happened to the dominant defense from the season's first three games? Where is the Rudy Carpenter who led the nation in passing efficiency?
Then, there's the most important one.
What next?
After two losses by a combined 63 points to open the Pac-10 schedule, is the season lost already? Could it be that ASU fans are going to get to know how their neighbors to the south feel with a football team that is D-O-N-E by the end of September?
It sure looks possible. After the bye week, the Sun Devils head to Los Angeles to face USC, and let's face it, the odds are against them.
Coach Dirk Koetter is 2-16 against ranked teams with ASU, and he has never won a Pac-10 game in California. There's two strikes right there.
Need more? The last time ASU played at The L.A. Coliseum, two years ago, the Trojans jumped out to a 42-7 lead - at halftime.
Add the facts that the Sun Devils have not beaten USC since 1999, and according to the polls the Trojans are better than California and Oregon. It just does not look good.
A loss to USC would mean a 3-3 record, and I challenge anyone who was in Sun Devil Stadium Saturday to tell me how many money-in-the-bank wins are out there in the second half of the season.
Sure, winless Stanford comes to town in two weeks, but are there any others?
With a surprising 4-1 start, Washington has shown it's no longer a doormat.
Oregon State does not look really strong, but a conference road game is always tough.
Washington State just gave USC a serious run for its money on Saturday.
And UCLA has looked fairly solid with a 3-1 record this season.
Then there's the trip to UA at season's end. The Wildcats are not much better than they have been the past two years, despite what Tucsonans and ESPN talking heads like Kirk Herbstreit believe.
However, the last time the teams met in Tucson, in 2004, the Sun Devils came in 8-2 and lost to a hapless UA team that was 2-8 at the time.
If ASU is to save this season and win some of these games, it will certainly need Carpenter to return to 2005 form, because he just hasn't been the same quarterback who saved a sinking ship last year.
He seems to have lost his confidence, and it's not helping that every pass play that doesn't result in a touchdown seems to convert another hundred fans into believers that Sam Keller was Joe Montana, John Elway and Brett Favre rolled into one.
It would help if people would let go of Keller. He's gone to Nebraska, and he's not coming back. But it's looking more and more like Keller's shadow is going to hang over this entire season, if not beyond.
The bottom line is the future looks bleak right now. The ASU team that showed up Saturday - that of the 33 total passing yards and the 574 yards allowed - cannot resurface this season or it's going to be a long final seven games.
Of course, I say all this hoping to be wrong. I will gladly eat crow at season's end if this team proves me incorrect. I hope that I can sit here in two months and recall this column to be the most foolish thing I have ever written.
Maybe the Sun Devils will prove resilient after all. They'll use the bye week to clear their heads and start fresh. They'll topple the mighty Trojans next week. Or, even if they don't, they'll win six straight to end the season right.
It wouldn't be a Rose Bowl season, but in the context of what's happened the last two weeks, it might be even better.
A man can dream, right?
Reach the reporter at matthew.storey@asu.edu