(Photo: Scotty Bara/WCSN)
Although Arizona State came away from Saturday night’s clash against Northern Arizona with a 44-13 win, the Sun Devils failed to perform up to expectations. There were plenty of takeaways in the aftermath of the victory, and the score certainly didn’t tell the full story.
Let’s start with the good.
Kicker Zane Gonzalez looked like his 2014 self, connecting on all three of his field goal tries. He added a big boost to his extensive Sun Devil resume with a career long 53-yard field goal. Head Coach Todd Graham labeled his performance as “outstanding.”
On offense, Manny Wilkins showed flashes of being a mainstay at quarterback, and playmakers N’Keal Harry, Demario Richard, and Kalen Ballage each had a rushing touchdown. In fact, all five of the Sun Devils touchdowns were scored on the ground.
ASU set the tone early with a seven-play touchdown drive that consisted only of run plays, which was expected considering Wilkins’ lack of in-game throwing experience. Following the early score, however, the Sun Devils didn’t cross the goal line the rest of the half and held just a 10-3 lead at the mid-way point.
“We felt like if we could run the ball it would open up plays and we would wear them down,” Graham said. “We expected to score a lot more points than we did in the first half.”
And while the ASU defense allowed the Lumberjacks to pass for 369 yards, the unit stepped up when needed and provided a handful of important third and fourth down stops.
Although they came away victorious, it wasn’t ideal for the Sun Devils that this game started off eerily similar to a previous game.
Last year, the Sun Devils opened their home slate against an FCS team, Cal Poly, in a game that seemed to heavily favor ASU. This year, the Lumberjacks, another FCS team, also didn’t seem to match up with the Sun Devils on paper.
Both games featured ASU leading by just a touchdown after the first quarter and holding one-possession leads at the half. Since FBS teams traditionally beat up on FCS schools, this wasn’t a welcoming sign for Graham and his staff.
Unlike last year, however, ASU took charge during the second half and looked how an FBS team should when playing notably inferior competition.
The impressive rout was accomplished despite the fact that ASU was missing some key contributors.
The Sun Devils were particularly hobbled at linebacker. Last year’s leading tackler Salamo Fiso missed the game due to a violation of team standards, while Christian Sam suffered an early injury and Marcus Ball was ejected due to a targeting penalty, the first one since Graham took over at ASU. Converted linebacker Laiu Moeakiola and nose tackle Ami Latu were also out due to injury and a violation of team standards, respectively. Despite the loss of the handful of key leaders, Graham was pleased with how his defense responded.
“I thought Renell Wren showed up,” he said. “Tashon (Smallwood) always plays really solid. I though JoJo (Wicker) did some good things. They were slide protecting 7- and 8-man protection. We did some good things with (tackles for loss). We were very simple. That was probably the least amount of pressure we have ever ran in a game.”
“It is stressful because Laiu and Salamo and even Ami, those are guys with vast experience who are communicators. That’s one of the reasons why we were as simple as we were. We didn’t want to beat ourselves up by making mental mistakes and assignment errors.”
The defensive effort was commendable, but the revamped secondary did not appear to have made a ton of positive strides. The group let up the most passing yards in the NCAA last season, and started off this year on a similar note as Lumberjacks quarterback Case Cookus completed 22-of-33 passes for 369 yards and 1 TD.
Arizona State starting cornerbacks Kareem Orr and Gump Hayes struggled in coverage at times and had just one pass deflection between the two of them.
In total, ASU allowed 425 total yards, although they did collect 456 themselves. It was expected they would out-gain the Lumberjacks, who have a vulnerable defense that allowed 70 points in its lone FBS test last season.
When Texas Tech comes to town next week, top level passing offenses will be facing off against ASU, and improvement will be a priority.
“They got a couple of 50-50 balls, but I feel like we played pretty solid,” safety Armand Perry said. “We just have to go back to the film and get ready for Texas Tech.”
Penalties were not a major issue for the Sun Devils, but an added lack of discipline was apparent at times. Although they committed only five penalties for 40 yards, three of those five handed the Lumberjacks a first down. During one particular spurt in the third quarter, ASU committed penalties on back-to-back plays, an extreme rarity in the Graham era.
With the ongoing defensive issues, limiting the infractions will be an even bigger priority in the coming weeks.
The Sun Devils’ win wasn’t pretty and the team saw a lot of places to improve upon, but it is a positive step for a team that is featuring a largely new group of players.
Game Notes:
-Long snapper Mitchell Fraboni missed the game with injury. Cohl Cabral served as the primary long snapper. Graham mentioned that the absence of Fraboni threw off some of the timing on special teams.
-Graham said that the team is expected to get Latu back next week, but there is no timetable for Fraboni’s return.
