Photo: Ben Margot/AP
To call Arizona State’s offense vanilla, would be an insult to vanilla. ASU’s offense has all the flavor of a communion wafer, and that lack of flair was never more evident than in Saturday’s 24-14 loss to California in Berkeley.
The Sun Devils continually tried to establish their running game despite the fact that they were down 10 or more points basically the whole game. ASU used Keegan Herring, who was less than 100% and Dimitri Nance, who hobbled the Sun Devils with an early fumble that led to Cal’s first touchdown. ASU ran with their running backs 28 times for 81 yards, just 3.1 yards per carry. Again, there was no big plays in the running game, as the longest run was a 13-yard scamper by Herring.
But the passing game isn’t exactly lighting it up either. Rudy Carpenter completed 20 of 35 but for only 165 yards, and was intercepted twice. That’s only 4.7 yards per attempt, well short of his season average of 9.62 yards per attempt.
But the Sun Devils have no choice really, but to “go vanilla”. Their offensive line can’t run block, and when Carpenter is put into sure passing situations on third down, they can’t pass block either. Carpenter was sacked 3 times in the game, and on two of them, ASU offensive lineman basically whiffed on their blocking assignments.
Defensively, the Sun Devils showed some pride for the first time in a long time. Don’t get me wrong, they’re vanilla too. Cal started Nate Longshore at quarterback. Longshore is mistake-prone (which is why he lost his job after 3 years in the first place) and possesses the foot speed of a three-toed sloth with a sprained ankle. ASU rarely, if ever, blitzed in the ball game, and let Longshore get off to a hot start and throw three touchdown passes. The Devils aren’t getting much push from their front four, and the lack of blitzing is making things harder on their struggling group of cornerbacks, Omar Bolden, Pierre Singfield and Terrell Carr. The ASU defense sacked Longshore once, and “forced” one turnover. More accurately, Mike Nixon intercepted a Longshore screen pass in the 1st half– a throw that Longshore couldn’t have handed to Nixon more easily.
To make a long story short, this team is broken. They’re 2-3 facing back to back games with USC and Oregon, the two best teams in the conference. Even with the Pac-10 as bad as it’s been for years, you can probably circle two more wins on the Sun Devils’ schedule if this team doesn’t change the way they play right now.
When was the last time ASU fans asked the question “when does basketball season start?”
Here’s what others are saying about ASU’s third straight loss…
- ASU falls to Cal in third straight loss [AZCentral]
- ASU falls at Cal, 24-14 [East Valley Tribune/AP]
- Longshore leads Cal past punchless Arizona State [SF Gate]
