Posts Tagged ‘arizona state’

This weekend Zach Barnett and I traveled to Arizona to see how football is played in the great state of Arizona. 

We arrived early in the day Thursday. After a quick lunch on Mill Ave. (more on this area later) we went to Oregon's team hotel to meet with their coaches. Two key takeaways from that meeting - first, it's a long day of waiting before heading to the stadium for a 6 p.m. ESPN game; and second, Oregon's coaches have a lot of confidence in this year's team. A third note that only Opps guys will appreciate - when I asked what one of the coaches what time they were going to step on the field, he pulled out a laminated business card size sheet that showed his group on the field at 3:59. Not 4 p.m.,  3:59. Hawk doesn't mess around.

We headed back to campus to check out the pre-game festivities. The pre-game scene outside of the stadium was a little lighter than anticipated, but given that this was a 6pm game on a "school day"...

The vibe on the field before the game was awesome. Todd Graham and his staff have several huge speakers set up on the field blaring music certain to get their players excited. Every player was bouncing around, big smiles and clearly ready to roll. 

Down on the Oregon side I witnessed something that I thought was pretty cool. As the players finished up pre-game action on the field and headed to the locker room with Chip Kelly, all of the assistants got together to shake hands, encourage each other to have a great game and to just take a minute to enjoy the moment. This is what these guys work for. Enjoy it, remember it, embrace it, because too soon the season will be behind you. 

Five minutes before the game I looked up and the stadium was still less than half full...five minutes into the game the place was packed and loud (unfortunately those arriving five minutes late had missed the first 17 touchdowns). The student section was loud. Question for the Pac-12: Why are so many student sections located behind the home team's bench? Crazy. 

On the field, injuries slowed Arizona State after losing their best defensive player on the first play of the game. Slow and Oregon don't mix well. Oregon is fast and when their quarterback is making good decisions on the read they are tough to stop. Chip Kelly, Mark Helfrich, Nick Aliotti and the rest of the staff have their guys playing at a high level. 

After the game we stopped by Mill Ave. once again to enjoy post-game ASU style. Did. Not. Disappoint.

One more note about ASU. 6pm start had pre-game tailgating less than expected...but trust me post-game is impressive #SendYourSonsHere

— FootballScoop Staff (@footballscoop) October 19, 2012

Friday we went in to see the Arizona State coaches. We spoke separately with AD Steve Patterson and Todd Graham who both said about the same thing, "Didn't play our best but the program is getting better. Need to continue to add depth and talent, but we're still in this battle for the south." Todd Graham left me with this nugget, "I sure hope we get another crack at them in 5 weeks." 

ASU's team room has a fresh design

Friday afternoon Mike from Overtime Software and I headed down to Tucson. Upon entering the football offices we were promptly greeted by Rich Rod. Rich is one of the head coaches I most enjoy visiting with. When he speaks with you he's completely engaged with you. He remembers every time you have met and is truly interested in you. He's the exact same way with his staff and his players. This group is bought in to what Rich is doing.

LSU and Texas A&M kicked off at 9am local time, which at first seemed so odd but then seemed so wonderful. West coast life ain't so bad. Mike and I were fairly engaged with the game at the hotel's pool bar (yes, that's Pac-12 living) and from time to time might have raised our voices at the TV. Pretty sure most of the others at the pool thought we were crazy; one even said, you guys must be from the South. Yes, yes we are. 

We arrived on "The Mall" at Arizona around 2pm and found a delightful atmosphere. A nicely defined and orchestrated tailgate scene was enjoyed for several hours. I had the pleasure of meeting countless high school coaches from the area and enjoyed talking ball with them. Each had very positive feedback regarding the direction that both Arizona and Arizona State's programs are headed. Overall, we encountered nothing hospitality and saw a vibrant scene. 

.@greg_byrne have to applaud the atmosphere you guys have created on campus pre-game. The Mall looks great #beardown

— FootballScoop Staff (@footballscoop) October 21, 2012

We joined the Arizona staff on their sideline for the game. I took turns standing by Jeff Casteel (and David Lockwood) as they called the defense and watching Rich Rod and his guys call the offense. Most of this staff has been together for quite some time and this is truly a sideline that is all on the same page. They move fast and make changes on the fly but I rarely saw any sort of communication issues between the staff or the players. I like how these guys work as a staff. 

After the game I had the pleasure of meeting several of the coaches families on the field. Arizona is very much a family atmosphere both within the program and university wide. 

University Blvd./Main Gate Square was enjoyable after the game with fans from several Pac-12 programs in attendance. We liked the crowd upstairs at Gentle Ben's. 

Both Arizona and ASU appear headed to have their programs headed in the right direction. When Rich Rod was hired I immediately thought it was a great hire by Greg Byrne and my visits there since have reinforced that belief. Upon hearing of Todd Graham's hiring at ASU I didn't honestly know how that would work out but after this visit and spending time with he and his staff and the AD I feel very confident that this program is in good hands and is headed in a good direction. It's going to be a lot of fun to watch these two teams play football for a long time. Football in this state is on the rise. One thing to watch for...if either (or both) of these teams can improve their ability to pull the right recruits from Texas and/or Southern California look out. I like the future of football in the Pac-12.

Last note, I cracked a smile when late in the game I turned around and noticed where Arizona had UW's band. Take a look at this picture...way, way up top in far, far right corner. Nice.

We've got a total of five college games on tonight (two FBS games) and a NFL game.

Eastern time listed.

NFL:

Seattle at San Francisco - 8:20 - NFL Network

College:

Hampton at NC Central - 7:30 - ESPNU

North Alabama at West Georgia - 7:30 - CSS

Houston at SMU - 8 - FSN Affiliate

New Haven at Stonehill - 8 - CBSSN

Oregon at Arizona State - 9 - ESPN

High School:

No games

In their first season at Arizona State (5-1, 3-0), Todd Graham and his staff have stuck with the plan of playing an aggressive, attacking style of defense.

The Sun Devils are clearly getting after it each week, ranking second in both tackles for loss (nearly 10 per game) and sacks (just over 4 per game). Tomorrow's game against Oregon (6-0, 3-0) will be a huge test for them, on both sides of the ball.

Graham noted that he took a look at Oregon's film during their off week before the Colorado game, saying that while the coordinators focused on the Buffaloes, he's still a fan of the game, and that it's in his nature to be looking forward to a big game like this.

After practice yesterday, Graham explained that when they first got together as a staff, they asked themselves "who do we need to be to beat the best in the Pac 12?" and then designed their systems accordingly.

"So we designed our systems around how we think the best way to do that is. There is no doubt in my mind that there is no way that your going to beat a team as good as they are by sitting there. No doubt in my mind, they're too hard to defend."

Graham says that their defense will still be aggressive tomorrow night, but naturally won't be able to do as much because of Oregon's tempo and making sure that they can get everything communicated properly.

"I told you from the beginning that we're going to be an attacking defense. A lot of people say that just because it sounds good, but that is actually who we are."

A few months back we embarked on a Pac-12 Tour (sponsored by our good friends at Overtime Software). Off-season tour was excellent; but the coaches told us we needed to come back for a few games. Thus, this weekend we're hitting 4 Pac-12 teams...Thursday night we'll be field-level for Oregon at Arizona State and then Saturday night we'll join the fine folks at Arizona as they host Washington. No confirmed appearances scheduled yet on the worldwide leader but you never know what might happen...stay tuned. 

To get you mind right for Thursday night's matchup, take a look at a couple of stats that we found interesting...

-Strength vs. Strength: Arizona State quarterback Taylor Kelley and Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota currently rank 1-2 in the Pac-12 in passing efficiency. Each will face his stiffest test yet as Arizona State (89.4) and Oregon (107.3) also lead the conference in pass efficiency defense.

-Strength vs. Strength, Part deux: Oregon is second in the Pac-12 with 541.7 yards of total offense per game. ASU leads the league in total defense, surrendering just 272.7 yards per game.

-An area where Arizona State will try to take advantage: If Arizona State is able to pull the upset it will be because the Sun Devils consistently put Oregon in bad down-and-distance situations. Arizona State ranks No. 2 nationally by forcing 9.83 TFL per game, while Oregon is No. 102 in the country with 6.83 TFL allowed per game. Of course, when you're as explosive on offense as the Ducks are 2nd and 12 can just mean De'Anthony Thomas' latest touchdown run goes 62 yards instead of just 60.

-Score First, Score Last: Todd Graham's team is 5-0 when scoring first this season, and carries a 62-10 first quarter advantage into Thursday night. Arizona State also enjoys a 64-7 scoring margin in the fourth quarter in 2012. Meanwhile, Chip Kelly's squad has outscored the opposition 112-19 in its six games and holds a 109-28 advantage in the second half over their last four games.

-26-0: Under Chip Kelly, Oregon has never lost in 26 games played between Week 2 and Week 8 in his four seasons as head coach.

- Streaking Ducks: Oregon has the longest road winning streak in FBS (11), and has scored 30 or more points in 19 straight games - also the longest streak in FBS. Oregon is 38-2 when scoring 30 or more under Kelly.

- Stingy in the Red Zone: Oregon has allowed Pac-12 opponents only four touchdowns in 16 trips inside the red zone in 2012.

Suggestions for post-game wind-down in Tempe and Tucson are welcomed below, via email or on Twitter. 

It's hard to believe we're sitting at the halfway point of the 2012 college football season. We could have sworn Labor Day was just a week or two ago. Regardless, 50 percent of the season is already in the books. Here's what we found noteworthy from Week 7 of the college football slate.

1. Move over Ohio, is New Hampshire the new Cradle of Coaches? Probably not, but this stat (courtesy of Bruce Feldman) is astounding: Coaches from the state of New Hampshire, Chip Kelly and Dan Mullen, currently sit at 12-0 so far this season. Not bad for a state with zero FBS programs and just one FBS signee in 2012. 

2. Speaking of the Buckeye State, Ohio stands as the top state in college football right now. Urban Meyer is 7-0 and ranked No. 7 in the AP poll in his first season at Ohio State. Butch Jones is 5-0 and ranked No. 21 at Cincinnati. Frank Solich has Ohio at 7-0 and No. 25 in the AP. In fact, the MAC East standings read Ohio, Kent State (5-1, 3-0), Bowling Green (4-3, 2-1) and Miami of Ohio (3-4, 2-1) while Toledo also sits atop the MAC West at 6-1 and 4-0 in the league. Ohio's seven FBS teams are a combined 38-14. Oh yeah, and Mount Union is also 5-0 and has allowed only seven points all season. 

3. Arkansas seems to have put the wheels back on the wagon. One week after handling Auburn 24-7, the Razorbacks again looked like the top 10 team many expected to see in a 49-7 dismantling of Kentucky. No coach in the country could use a two-game winning streak more than the embattled John L. Smith. Yes, the wins came against teams that are a combined 0-8 in the SEC. But when you are 1-4, a two-game winning streak is a two-game winning streak.

4. Duke missed its first chance at bowl eligibility. David Cutcliffe's team jumped out in front of Virginia Tech 20-0 only to see the Hokies reel off the game's final 41 points. Duke's next three opponents (North Carolina, Clemson and Florida State) are a combined 16-4 until a date with 2-4 Georgia Tech in Atlanta on Nov. 17.

#Duke's David Cutcliffe reiterates Tuesday statement that #Hokies' Frank Beamer is the top coach in the country

— Laura Keeley (@laurakeeley) October 10, 2012

5. Congrats to James Franklin and Vanderbilt for finally cracking the code to Florida's fourth quarter defense. After not allowing a point in any fourth quarter this season, Vanderbilt managed to register 10 points in the final frame on Saturday night. It wasn't enough to pull the upset as Will Muschamp's team improved to 6-0 with a 31-17 win. After being outscored 72-22 in fourth quarters last season, the Gators hold a 54-10 fourth quarter edge this season. Florida also claims come-from-behind wins over Texas A&M, Tennessee, LSU and Vanderbilt. Conditioning was clearly an emphasis of Muschamp in the off-season, and strength coach Jeff Dillman has definitely succeeded in transforming his team.

6. We're glad to see that Jerry Kill plans to coach again this Saturday. Kill suffered a seizure in his private locker room less than an hour after Minnesota's 21-13 loss to Northwestern on Saturday. Coach Kill was released from a Minneapolis hospital on Sunday morning.

7. Wisconsin has returned to form after a shaky start to the season. New offensive coordinator Matt Canada and interim offensive line coach Bart Miller have found their footing, and the Badgers' offense is back to its old ways. In a 38-14 win over Purdue, the Wisconsin offense rushed 57 times for 467 yards and four touchdowns. Starting tailback Montee Ball contributed 247 yards and three touchdowns on 29 rushes. After rushing for just 3.3 yards per carry over their first five games, Wisconsin is churning out 7.1 yards per attempt over its last two games. The Badgers are 5-2 and 2-1 in the Big Ten, a full two wins ahead of the pack of bowl-eligible teams in the Leaders Division.

8. Oregon will face an interesting challenge at Arizona State on Thursday night. In his first season in Tempe, Todd Graham has the Sun Devils sitting at 5-1 and ranked No. 24 in the Coaches Poll. Paul Randolph's defense is far and away the best unit in the Pac-12 on paper. Arizona State leads the league in total defense by nearly 60 yards per game over second place USC. The Sun Devils is giving up just 3.92 yards per play, nearly a full yard better than the rest of the conference. Randolph's unit also leads the conference in pass efficiency defense (4.86 yards per attempt), and its 3.23 yards per carry allowed is over a full yard better than Oregon's Pac-12 opposition to date. And then there's this: the last time Oregon traveled to the Grand Canyon State on a Thursday night was in 2007 when the No. 2 ranked Ducks lost to Arizona, 34-24. Chip Kelly and co. will hope history doesn't repeat itself this week. Scott and Zach from our staff will be at this game. More on this to come later in the week.

9. Notre Dame trailed for the first time this season on Saturday. The Fighting Irish actually trailed for a full quarter against Stanford after falling behind 10-3 at halftime; they didn't tie the game until a 24-yard touchdown pass early in the fourth quarter. Brian Kelly's team trailed again 13-10 before scoring the game's final 10 points in a 20-13 overtime win. Bob Diaco's defense still has not (officially) surrendered an offensive touchdown in four full games. 

10. Midweek action begins this week in college football. Starting with Louisiana - Lafayette at North Texas tomorrow night, we will have Tuesday or Wednesday night football all but one week through Thanksgiving.

Arizona State (4-1, 2-0) takes on Pac 12 opponent Colorado (1-4, 1-1) tonight at 9pm ET on ESPN.

Coming into the game, the Sun Devils scoring offense has gotten a lot of attention. They opened up the season by putting up 63 points on Northern Arizona, followed by 45 points against Illinois for a combined 108 points in a two game stretch. Impressive for a first year coaching staff.

However, we noticed an interesting note this morning that Arizona State's defense should be getting some love too. They rank 3rd nationally in sacks (4 per game) and 2nd nationally in tackles for loss (9.8 per game), including a 10 TFL performance against Cal.

Of the 343 snaps that the defense has been on the field for, 66 of them have resulted in no gain or a loss of yardage. That's an impressive 19% of all plays where the Sun Devils have stifled opponents at, or behind the line of scrimmage. If you include incomplete passes, that number increases to 39% of all plays that have not resulted in positive yardage.

Tonight, the aggressive Arizona State defense will be going against a Colorado offense that is giving up over 4 sacks per game (119th nationally) and an offense that ranks 100th nationally in scoring (22 ppg) and total offense (342 ypg). Colorado has played 13 true freshman this season (tied for 5th nationally), and has had 14 first time starters (also tied for 5th nationally).