Last Thursday night, when the ASU football team beat Washington State 55-21, it secured its bowl-eligibility for the 2013 postseason. But the news of that seemed obvious and somewhat unimportant, which is a good sign for this team.
The win, which was the first road win of the season for ASU, wasn’t filled with any drama, and the implications of the victory seemed equally drama-free.
In the past few seasons, it seems like ASU fans wait with bated breath for their team to clinch bowl eligibility. In years past, fans have had to wait until the last two or three games of the season to see if the Sun Devils would make it to a bowl game.
This year, however, things are different, and that is a good omen for this program.
ASU has four games left this season with a very legitimate chance at playing in the Pac-12 championship game.
Rather than simply playing to make it to a bowl game, the Sun Devils are playing to reach the Rose Bowl.
That change in expectations is refreshing. The simple fact that bowl eligibility isn’t really news for this team is also refreshing.
It means that the aura around this team is something special and something with better implications than the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl, which is the bowl game the Sun Devils played in last year against Navy.
Expectations are higher than that for this year’s team and that means the organizational turn-around that has been in the works since head coach Todd Graham was brought on board is really making significant progress.
Maybe it was the two early-season wins over opponents like Wisconsin and USC that made fans feel like six wins was going to be a simple goal to accomplish.
Maybe it was the makeup of a talented roster that told fans the Sun Devils would obviously be a bowl-quality team.
Whatever the reasons were for the high expectations, ASU has now won three in a row and four of its last five to reach a 6-2 record on the season.
ASU is also 4-1 in conference play and is in first place in the Pac-12 South.
2013 has been a season for the Sun Devils to prove their worth. They have beaten ranked teams several times, and they have gone on the road in the national spotlight and played at a high level.
They beat the teams they should have beaten and played tough in their losses.
Offensively, ASU has four games where it scored 50 or more points, and those games have come against some strong opponents.
ASU lit up USC for 62 points, hung 54 on Colorado and put up 53 against Washington before their 55-point outing against Washington State.
Defensively, there have been complaints about the Sun Devils’ inability to stop the run and there have been games where high offensive numbers were needed because the opponent was lighting up the scoreboard. But ultimately, the team has done enough to hold opponents down and get needed wins.
From a national perspective, ASU may not have too many big time stars or NFL prospects, and there isn’t a lot of Heisman buzz around quarterback Taylor Kelly or similar award hype around other players.
And while the Sun Devils are ranked in both the BCS poll and the AP Top 25 poll — 22nd and 23rd, respectively — the national spotlight has seldom been directed toward Tempe.
Granted, the Sun Devils still have a long way to go. If they finish up the season in first place in the Pac-12 South and play in the Pac-12 Championship, they will likely face a very difficult game against Oregon or Stanford, and they will probably be the underdogs.
But even if they lose the conference championship and the Rose Bowl becomes out of reach, the simple fact that expectations were for roses in the first place is a great sign for this program moving forward.
Gone are the days where fans simply hope to scrape through the season and slide in with a bowl berth. Gone are the days where ASU supporters lack faith in the potential of their team.
The days when ASU fans fully expect their team to play for the Pac-12 conference title have arrived as the team is playing at a high level and its fans are flocking.
The Sun Devils are bowl eligible, but that isn’t enough. And that in itself is cause for celebration.
Reach the columnist at icbeck@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @ICBeck21
