The fall of 2008 was an exciting time for ASU football enthusiasts.
The team was coming off its first 10 win season since the ’96 Rose Bowl squad, the starting quarterback, among others, had returned and ASU coach Dennis Erickson appeared to have some coaching magic left in his tank.
Now it’s 2010 and the Sun Devils are headed toward another losing season. If completed, it would be the first time the ASU football program has had three consecutive losing seasons since World War II.
I doubt anyone can remember, but ASU went 2-8 in 1942, took three years off for the war, went 2-7-2 in 1946 and then went 4-7 in 1947.
The team then went over 60 straight seasons without back-to-back losing seasons, let alone back-to-back-to-back. An impressive feat for any football program let alone one that finishes many of its seasons with seven wins.
Then ASU went 5-7 in 2008 and 4-8 in 2009, but even then there wasn’t much alarm.
Two straight losing seasons has happened with much more regularity, and early on in 2010 the possibility of the streak reaching three seemed dim.
The difficulty with this season’s Sun Devils is that all the pieces appeared to be falling into place.
A quarterback brought promise and close games over top-ranked teams showed the team could compete. But a loss to Washington Saturday would make one calendar year without a victory over another FBS program.
Again, that would be nine straight losses to teams that compete in a BCS conference.
How is that acceptable for a program that has generally succeeded throughout its history?
I guess I no longer understand the excuses for the team’s lack of success after three years of being young and climbing over the hump.
Young is an easy scapegoat for mistakes, but at the same time is shouldn’t be a problem when the players have experience.
“The leaders on our football team are underclassmen,” Erickson said in Monday’s press conference.
Good, that answer appeals to me, but at the same time it leaves us without a reason for the team’s struggles.
Then there is the argument that a team has to first be bad before it can be good.
That doesn’t make any sense.
If a team loses more games this season then it did the season before, doesn’t that make it the lesser of the two teams?
And how is progressively losing more games considered building a foundation for the ASU program to be a future powerhouse?
Winning turns a team into a powerhouse.
This is my second to last season to watch the team as a student. Going four years without seeing one postseason berth is a tough possibility to swallow.
“Being young, they can see the light at the end of the tunnel and they’ll compete,” Erickson said.
Yeah but I’m getting older, and unfortunately my ASU career, along with many others, could possibly end without a single moment to brag about.
There is no light at the end of the tunnel for the fans, just a losing record and a bunch of obnoxious UA fans.
I don’t want to tell people I went to ASU during one of the worst stretches in the football program’s history.
Erickson said he doesn’t think his players are demoralized, just disappointed. But many fans are both, and the frustration is mounting.
Reach the reporter at nathan.meacham@asu.edu
