Check out more photos from Saturday's game against U of A in this slideshow. OR Were you in the student section for the game? See if The State Press caught you cheering on the Sun Devils in this slideshow.
At the end of October, the ASU football team’s road to the Pac-12 title game was simple: win and it’s in. But after three consecutive losses, the formula is now a little trickier.Despite lost sentiment following the Sun Devils’ 31-27 loss to UA, what the squad needs to happen in the final week of the regular season didn’t change all the much.
First and foremost, ASU needs to defeat California at home Friday night. If the Sun Devils drop their fourth straight, they are eliminated. If they win, the next step is twofold: Utah has to take care of Colorado and UCLA has to fall against Southern California.
If all three of those games end in ASU’s favor it would set up a three-way tie atop the Pac-12 south standings. In that event, the deciding tiebreaker to eliminate one team from the race would be in-division record. The Sun Devils and Utah would finish 3-2 while UCLA would end at 2-3, thus eliminating the Bruins. Now with two teams left, the final step is head-to-head results, giving ASU the advantage because of its 35-14 win over the Utes earlier this season.
“We have to win, other things have to happen too, but at least if we win, we have a chance,” ASU coach Dennis Erickson said. “It’s very uplifting. We have another opportunity.”
The reason the Sun Devils need a three-way tie to advance is because they lost the head-to-head with UCLA, so if ASU wins but the Bruins and Utes lose, UCLA would advance in a two-way tie with ASU.
It’s a convoluted way to backdoor into the Pac-12 championship game, but it’s not unlikely to happen in the least bit. ASU is favored by 5.5 points over Cal, Utah is favored by 20.5 over Colorado and UCLA is a 14.5 underdog to USC.
“We don’t need something magical to happen, it’s what should happen,” ASU senior wide receiver Gerell Robinson said. “Ending up in the title game is our plan.”
So even after a month’s worth of unexpected disappointment and failures, the Sun Devils, if all goes their way, could be two wins away from a Rose Bowl appearance.
“I don’t think it was until Sunday when I got a text explaining the situation,” ASU junior quarterback Brock Osweiler said. “To be real, I was very surprised. It was great news though.
“That’s the beautiful thing about the situation we are in; we can still reach our goals that we set for this football team we made at the beginning of the year. Did we do it in the fashion we had hoped for? No, but there’s still a chance.”
Reflection
A number of things contributed to the Sun Devils blowing a 10 point fourth quarter lead Saturday against the Wildcats. 92 penalty yards, poor tackling and three turnovers in UA territory stuck out the most.
On Monday, Erickson and Osweiler gave their interpretations after watching the film.
“It was ridiculous how many tackles we missed,” Erickson said. “We practice tackling every day. Running to the football and getting a lot more people to the football. We just don’t make the plays that we did before.”
The quarterback pointed to the offense working behind the chains and forcing itself to make long conversions.
“We killed ourselves with a couple of penalties and it got us in difficult situations,” Osweiler said. “We would get in the redzone and we couldn’t find a way to get it in the endzone for some points. I can’t put my hand out it right now, but that’s something that needs to be cleaned up.”
Bolden done
After practicing with the scout team for much of the last few weeks, ASU redshirt senior cornerback Omar Bolden was back on the sidelines Monday.
He tore his ACL during spring practice and was a 2010 First-Team All-Conference player.
Reach the reporter at tyler.emerick@asu.edu
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