(Photo: Alli Cline/WCSN)
Just when you thought the Sun Devils’ Pac-12 championship hopes had come and gone with their 2-2 start to the year, things seem to have opened up after a crazy couple of weeks in the Pac-12 South.
Utah has shocked many, and is atop the division and undefeated. USC, who demolished ASU two weeks ago, lost to a Washington team that was determined to defeat their former coach in Steve Sarkisian.
Of course the most notable of the south’s table turn was ASU knocking off No. 7 UCLA on the road, which was one of the bigger upsets in college football this year. The win all but revived ASU’s season.
Now ASU faces the only conference opponent of their first five that has yet to be ranked in the top-25 this season in Colorado.
The Buffaloes enter with a 3-2 record, but they have yet to face a ranked opponent, where the Sun Devils have already faced three. In their most recent game, which resulted in a loss to the Oregon Ducks, Colorado proved that at times they can be a force to be reckoned with.
While Oregon is dealing with plenty of issues on the field, they are no pushover team. Colorado hung in with the defending runner-up College Football Playoff team, and at one point, were only down by seven points in the fourth quarter. The Buffaloes ended up losing the game 41-24, and their three turnovers were a big culprit for that.
For ASU, maintaining its high level of play is crucial in a game like this. Its first two games of conference play came against two top-15 teams, and after this Colorado game, the Sun Devils will play Utah, which is currently a top-10 team. In other words, it’s not going to get any easier, and letting off the gas now could derail their hopes for good.
Matchup to Watch: Nelson Spruce vs. Lloyd Carrington
Carrington has typically been the guy who matches up with the opposing team’s top receiver, and this will be one of his toughest tests yet.
Spruce was one of the only bright spots for Colorado last year, and he stood out among every other receiver in the conference as well. In his 2014 campaign, he hauled in 106 receptions for 1198 yards and 12 touchdowns and earned second-team all-conference honors.
So far this year, Spruce has only found the end zone once, but has 31 catches for 363 yards. The 6-foot-1 receiver can beat opposing defensive backs in a variety of ways and is a serious big-play downfield threat.
While big play receivers such as JuJu Smith-Schuster of USC and Thomas Duarte of UCLA have had big games against the Sun Devil secondary so far this year, all other facets of this defense were clicking at an extremely high level last week against UCLA. Losing sophomore safety Armand Perry due to an ankle injury in the second game of the season may have been a temporary setback, but with the way true freshman Kareem Orr has played in Perry’s place, many signs point to this secondary returning to its turnover-forcing ways.
Prediction
The Sun Devils seem to be back on track. Whether or not it’s too late for them to reach their original goals, nobody will know until the end of the season. With all of the shakeup that has happened in the first couple weeks of conference play, ASU at this point controls its own destiny.
That being said, it would be devastating for ASU to lose this game, or any game for that matter between now and when postseason play begins. A very similar sequence of events led up to the Oregon State loss a season ago, but the maturity of this team and the level we saw it’s capable of playing at a week ago makes me believe that it won’t be vulnerable in a trap game like last year’s team was.
For that reason, ASU wins 35-21, and builds momentum as they prepare to face the division-leader in Utah.
