Arizona State brought in retired Lt. Gen. Benjamin Freakley on Monday to speak before coach Todd Graham’s news conference about the school’s “Salute to Service 2015” campaign, two weeks of events honoring veterans and active members of the US military, starting with Oregon’s visit to Sun Devil Stadium on Thursday night. “Our guys have worked hard and our best football is ahead of us”.
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“I think we’re going to have to be patient”, Frost said. The Sun Devil offense did not score a touchdown and mustered just 257 yards of total offense. The last meeting, in 2012, was a 43-21 Ducks victory in Tempe.
Such is the case for Oregon but a helping hand will be required with Stanford set to host the Ducks in Palo Alto and holding a game in hand. The run game has been pretty much non-existent and Demario Richard has been banged up. Arizona State is now among the country’s 30 worst teams in sacks and tackles-for-loss allowed.
The Sun Devils rank 10th in the conference in scoring offense, rushing offense and passing offense. Both Graham and Bercovici would like to see the offense operate at a faster tempo.
“He makes you make a decision: Are you going to come tackle me or not?” “We have to go get it done, and I don’t care if it’s 3-0 or 60-59”.
Arizona State, with quarterback Mike Bercovici, is a strong passing team, and the secondary issues have been well documented this season.
THE PAC-12 – Seven games into the season, both the Sun Devils and Ducks find themselves in similar yet uncharacteristic territory given the success of recent years. “I was feeling really good until that question there”. They knocked off UCLA at the Rose Bowl. “It’s just a matter of getting the guys ready to go”.
This would be a tall challenge for a fully healthy offensive line, let alone a reshuffled version of the Oregon line that has allowed nine sacks and four QB hits on 242 pass plays this season (running back Royce Freeman is also credited with allowing a sack). “They’re going to line up and show you where they’re coming from and just try to outnumber you”. Vernon Adams Jr. was a redshirt freshman at Eastern Washington. “We have to hit on our share of plays, too, and hopefully when we hit on our share of plays they’re big plays”.
“I think they struggled, obviously, when he got hurt and he wasn’t in there, because he has a tremendous cast around him”, Graham said about Adams. I mean, he’s very athletic – and completed it. He’s the guy they want in there.
Contain Oregon’s Running Game: This is an obvious key but it is perhaps the most important aspect of this game. They’ll need to continue to improve. If the Sun Devils can contain Freeman and make Adams beat them, they have a great chance at pulling out a victory.
A GAME OF FIRSTS: With just three contests remaining, it isn’t common to have season-firsts happen so late in the season but today’s match featured two.
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The yo-yo that has been the Arizona State season quickly put an end to the preseason notions the Sun Devils would be in contention for the Southern Division although to be accurate, ASU remains in the running. Yet when attention turns to the field, both teams know that defining their seasons as successful probably hinges on the result Thursday night.
