How good is ASU?

[Miles E.]

Undefeated at home. Lost to Texas Tech on the road. Came from behind to beat Kansas at home. From the games I’ve watched, their offense and defensive lines looked decent. Their quarterback plays with a lot of energy and can run. Should we be worried?

[Tednab]

Absolutely.. our offense can’t score, defense has been subpar and coaching has been atrocious. I’m not convinced this team turns it around in two weeks, I’m hoping to be wrong, but this team has too many issues to figure out.

[AZUTE]

How in the world did they ever get to 4-1 with all the “issues”?

If Cam plays and is 90% Utah wins going away.

Have not been impressed with ASU defensively.

I think the AZ game was a wake up call to the team. They learned they can’t just show up and beat teams.

Dominant the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. Establish Bernard early and it opens up everything else offensively. Shutdown Scattebo and make ASU one dimensional.

[RoboUte]

by playing some of the weakest teams on our schedule first.

It’s hilariously dishonest for people ride the 4-1 train when two of the four are SUU and USU (and a trash Baylor). Let’s all save each other some time and agree to use our brains.

[Utah]

You aren’t wrong, but it’s still a bad take. Every team plays garbage teams 8 games a year. It’s another reason why college football is getting worse and worse every year.

You can’t say Utah sucks at 4-1 and then prop other teams up with the same records. The reality is, we don’t know. As bad as we say Utah is, there is only about 24 teams that have a 4-1 or better record. We are a top 25 team. Full stop.

Do we have issues? Sure. But so does every other team.

[krindor]

In fairness, ASU is 4-1 by virtue of beating the following teams

• Kansas: 0-5 in FBS play
• Texas St: 2-2 in FBS play (victories over UTSA and Troy, with a loss to Sam Houston St)
• Mississippi St: 0-4 in FBS play (including a loss to Toledo)
• Wyoming: 1-4 in FBS play (beat Air Force, but lost to Idaho and North Texas)

So if we’re worried that Utah is a fraud based on an easy early schedule, the same calculus would have to apply to ASU as well

[RoboUte]

I’m not commenting on how good ASU is at all.

[Uteanooga]

Of course we should be worried.

Over the past decade Utah has proven they can beat anyone and they can lose to anyone.

This year Utah has shown capacity for intermittently solid defense and unpredictable offensive output. ASU is averaging their highest PPG since 2016 at 37 points per game (oh jealousy, I love to see Utah score points). Even if Utah holds them to 20, the game will be a push if the offense does not put things together.

Could Utah boat race them? Oh yes and it would be such fun.

Could Utah fail to score enough points to be competitive? Oh yes and we have seen that recently.

[SalUTEtheU]

I was not impressed with their defense against Kansas. Offensively it is mostly just Skattebo. Keys to winning the game to me are stopping the run and establishing the run. If we do those two things I think we win comfortably. If we struggle to do either I think we are cooked.

[RiseasUtes]

Sure, but what part of our defense has been impressive? They have Skattebo on offense and we have Singer, which is about it for us this year. Wilson is going to be good, but he is 18 and not ready yet. This offense has been putrid the last few weeks. I feel like we should beat ASU, but I’m not really confident in our D, O, or ST right now. I hope coaching woke up after the AZ game and makes some adjustments.

[Rick]

Statistically Bernard is a better back than Scattebo. Bernard averages 6.7 YPG and Scattebo is at 5.5.

[2008 National Champ]

and Skattebo has another 200 yards receiving while Bernard has.,, 6. 30 more carries, 14 more receptions. 824 total yards v Bernard’s 553. Skattebo 6.5 yards / touch, Bernard 6.3.

Statistically Skattebo has been the better back to this point, but it’s not a blowout. Bernard just needs to get the ball more since there’s been such a drop off with the other backs.

[RiseasUtes]

I love Bernard, that wasn’t a shot against him. But our Oline has been pretty disappointing in both run and pass blocking up to this point. They are young though, so I have hope, but our team has not been impressive team we heard about all offseason.

[Nick]

I agree they also lost their top two defenders for targeting the first half of our game. watching Kansas if we can get some big runs and quick passes they did not look that impressive on D. On O it’s really trying to contain Skattaboo and their receivers are not the same level as AZ in my opinion

[RoboUte]

Half as good as we’ll make them look.

[Jim Vanderhoof]

We match up well on defense. Quarterback can run but not accurate throwing. Keep him in the pocket. Offense should be able to mix run and throw. We should get a win and get some momentum going again.

[Tony (admin)]

I don’t know how good ASU is. I also don’t know how good Utah is.

[Jim Vanderhoof]

Tony we are both “ a work in progress”.

[Ghost of the HEB]

Should we be worried? Unless time of possession starts counting as points, I’m very concerned about our ability to score enough to beat a team with a decent offense. There is definitely potential for this game to look reminiscent of last year’s Oregon State.

However, the Friday night forecast is looking less cloudy than it was on Monday.

[Yergensen]

This^

If you’re going to control and run clock you damn well better produce points at the end of those long drives.

Dominating time of possession limits possessions for the competition, but also limits your own number of possessions.

Ranking highly in TOP and ranking poorly in red zone efficiency is a bad combination.

[SalUteopia]

“Friday night forecast is looking less cloudy..” 👀👀👀
I’m going to be so productive today 🙏🙏🙏

[Jim Vanderhoof]

“So you’re saying there’s a chance”. A dumb and dumber comment actually works here. I won’t look to the sky for a “bad moon rising” rather the first offensive possession. If Wilson or Rising run on the field it won’t matter to me. We need a win period.

[The Miami Ute]

Should we be worried? I think so…other than the current four-game winning streak that Utah is on versus ASU, the Sun Devils have historically owned the Utes in football, both home and away (and Utah is only 5-15 all-time in Tempe). I mean, I remember when I used to hate them almost as much as USC. They’re also looking at Utah from the moral high ground after that 55-3 pasting we gave them last year at RES. You think that they’re not going to be up for the game? Unlike Utah a couple of weeks ago versus Zona, I fully expect them to be hyped and high-energy from the opening kickoff. The other thing they have going for them is that their actual starting QB is available and can make plays with his arm and legs. To me, and I know this sounds dire but I’m calling it as I see it, Utah loses this game unless Rising plays.

[2008 National Champ]

The QB is also someone Utah offered out of the portal last offseason. One has to wonder how much the decision to name Rising the starter no matter what played into him choosing ASU, or chased off any of the other QB’s Utah might have wanted?

If you look at it from outside Utah fandom, 2024 Utah should have been an attractive landing spot for a RS Freshman. It was already known that Wilson was considering surgery and there was no one else behind Rising, who has a history of injuries. And quite frankly, no QB who believes he should be starting at a P4 school should be scared to compete with an incoming freshman.

So you really have to question how good the pitch was that Utah was making. Because if you can’t sell a kid on the chance to compete for the starting spot right away on a team that nearly all of the pundits say is playoff quality over a team that is waiting to hear about their probation and is turning over their roster as quickly as they can to try to not be in last place again, you weren’t really trying.

[The Miami Ute]

That whole attitude of naming someone “starting QB for life” is just so counterproductive… especially when you’re talking about someone that’s suffered so many injuries in his college career.

[2008 National Champ]

It just feels, and felt at the time, so incredibly shortsighted. You’ve got a 7th year senior and an incoming freshman with the only thing in-between being a 3rd year player that the head coach told reporters multiple times the previous season had not learned the playbook.

And this coming off a 4 year gap where you got 2 3 starts out of the 5 HS QB’s brought in from 2020-2023, of which only one is still on the roster. And the 3 transfer QB’s in the same time frame of which the best that can be said is one of them made a pretty good running back who was never allowed to throw a pass. That’s a lot of misses that can only be made up for in the portal but never seemed to be treated as an urgent need, even though QB is universally considered to be the most important position on the field.

Maybe Whitt got so used to having to field teams with substandard QB’s that he thought he could get away with what he had? I just can’t see another school willing to give 13 11 starts over the previous 2 seasons to walk-ons that weren’t Stetson Bennett or Baker Mayfield quality.

[D T]

We’re 6-2 against ASU over the last 8 [4 straight overall] & 2-1 in Tempe over the last 3…..Anything before then is entirely irrelevant.

TTU held their rushing attack to just 94 yards in their only loss…..Make them one-dimensional like that & they’re totally beatable.

I’m looking forward to walking out of SDS a winner tomorrow.

[The Miami Ute]

Why is it irrelevant? Because you say so? Wouldn’t it be more fair to say that Utah is 6-6 versus ASU since the two teams have been in the same conference?

[2008 National Champ]

seems like only games played in Tempe, on a Friday night, in October, with the temps above 85 degrees at kickoff, when Utah is coming off a loss and a bye while ASU is coming off a home win would be relevant for the data set in question 🙂

[D T]

Why stop there? I mean, if 12 years ago is relevant, why not go all the way back to the 70s? Oh wait, you already did that.

So, because you say a game back in 2012 is relevant to a game being played in 2024, we should just sit back & accept it?

We’ve dominated them in recent memory & that’s far more relevant than a game played a dozen years ago…..Get with it, man.

[SalUteopia]

Cam or not, I’m worried about this game, maybe because there’s so much to lose. Lose it, and we’re practically out of the B12/CFP race. ASU is no pushover, and it will be an ugly game like most of our games. I’d feel much better about our chances if Reid and O’Toole play.

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