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Every coach will tell you his team is not overlooking his next opponent, no matter what that opponent’s track record may be. So Arizona State coach Herm Edwards is typical in that regard.
But if his players get out of line or think otherwise, all he needs to do is rattle off the scores of games involving Pac-12 teams from the opening weekend of play. There were stunners to say the least.
The Sun Devils (1-0) will face what should be one of those easily winnable games on Saturday when they play host to UNLV (0-1) in a 7:30 p.m. contest to be aired on ESPN2.
“I talked about that Wednesday night,” Edwards said about guarding against overconfidence. “It’s hard to win a football game. And I think sometimes we look on paper, and you know paper has never won a football game. It’s what you do out on the football field.”
Yes, ASU turned in a flawed performance in its 41-14 victory over Southern Utah. Most notable were the 13 penalties for 135 yards. But the Sun Devils still scored more points than any other team in the Pac-12 last week and their margin of victory was the widest.
Edwards even played that down.
“You know what it means? It doesn’t mean anything. We’re 1-0. That’s all it means,” he said.
While Southern Utah was a foe ASU was expected to beat decisively, the same could be said for many of the other Pac-12 teams.
Six of the nine conference teams that played on Saturday lost, marking the first time that has happened on opening weekend since the conference expanded to 12 teams in 2011. Making that feat more embarrassing is that most Power 5 conference schools usually schedule easier foes the first few weeks.
Five of the six teams in the North lost and the team that did win, Oregon, was pushed in 31-24 win over Fresno State. Five of the six teams in the South won, the exception being Arizona, which lost to BYU and has now dropped 13 straight games dating back to 2019.
Two of the surprises featured teams from Washington with the No. 20 Huskies upset by Montana 13-7 and Washington State falling to Utah State 26-23, both doing so in their own venues.
Washington, which became the fifth ranked FBS team to lose to an FCS team since 2007, had been expected to be the toughest challenger for Oregon in the North and would have played in the Pac-12 title game last season had it not been for COVID-19.
Meanwhile Washington State lost to Utah State, predicted to be a bottom tier team in the Mountain West, on a touchdown pass with 11 seconds left.
“When you look at what has happened in college football, there are a lot of upsets in college football and no one can ever figure it out,” Edwards said. “We knew going into opening day for a lot of teams, something was going to happen. You saw a lot of great games, a lot of teams that were underdogs come back and win.”
Edwards didn’t offer much on any particular game, saying he prefers to focus on his own team, which will face a UNLV team coming off a 35-33 double overtime loss to Eastern Washington.
“We’ve got a lot of cleaning up to do in all three phases of our football team. We talked about it this weekend and yesterday we had a little bit of a walk-through to try and look at some things. It’s about us now. We look at our football team, we’ve got to improve. We put ourselves in some bad situations due to our own missed opportunities and just being too emotional, especially in the first half.”
Edwards praises Hodges
The coach praised the play of senior tight end Curtis Hodges, who has struggled with injuries in his career but seems to be blossoming given a more prominent role in the offense.
Hodges had two catches for 56 yards along with a catch on a two-point conversion. Edwards also praised his contribution as a blocker.
At 6-foot-8 Hodges, a product of Mesa Mountain View, is an imposing figure and his size is something Edwards said can benefit the Sun Devils because it will be a tough matchup for any foe. He draws a parallel to his playing days with the Philadelphia Eagles and he was often called upon to defend Harold Carmichael.
“It’s difficult in practice being a corner. I remember my rookie year and I had heard about him and the first day we line up and I’m one-on-one and he walks out there and I’m thinking, `He’s really tall.’ In practice I’d go against Harold and you think you have him covered, but you don’t, when they throw the ball up because of his length. And that’s the problem. You got to be a pretty good athlete to be able to play the ball.”
Defense performs well
One aspect of the game Edwards appreciated was the way his team tackled. He said that is most noteworthy because now teams don’t have a lot of scrimmages or live tackling.
“When you think about football any more, we don’t have live tackling. We don’t have scrimmages. When I first got here people thought, `What is he talking bout?’ We don’t tackle. We do tackle drills and do all those things, but live tackling, we generally don’t do that.”
Reach the reporter at [email protected] or 602 444-4783. Follow her on Twitter @MGardnerSports.
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