Sunday, October 21, 2007

4 games to decide it all

I'm glad to see ASU getting a #4 ranking in the BCS. It just really doesn't matter, though. Thus far, we are 4-0 in the Pac-10 against the four weakest teams, U of A excluded. I'm not diminishing what the Sun Devils have accomplished in the least, but with getting where we want to go, the polls don't matter. We've got a 4 game playoff ahead of us with Cal, Oregon, UCLA and USC, and it is not double elimination. We lose one, and we have no chance at New Orleans, and I would love to go to Bourbon Street again.

Looking ahead, Cal is playing the worst out of the big four teams we have left. The opening spread is favoring us by 3, which is nothing shocking. Personally, if I had a farm, I'd put it on ASU.

Looking even further ahead than Cal, the Sun Devils travel to Autzen Stadium to play Oregon on November 3rd. If we have no major defensive injuries against Cal, we should be able to contain this offense, considering we contained Jake Locker aside from his 32 yard touchdown run.

Oregon should get a good test out of USC next week, but will most likely come away victorious. I see ASU as the only team capable of containing this Oregon offense enough to put a second loss on their record. Even if we pass the test up in Eugene, we still have a UCLA team who figured out how to win on Saturday and a USC team who could be a lot healthier of a team by the time we play them on Thanksgiving.

So it's great that the team is getting recognized as the #4 team in the country, but a high ranking really doesn't mean anything, just ask South Florida.

One game at a time, and Cal is up first in the playoff.

1 comment:

Devilish Ideas said...

Containing Dennis Dixon and the ducks isnt going to be quite as easy as shutting down Jake Locker considering:

- Dixon is a much better passer
- Jonathon Stewart is much better than Rankin.
- The ducks spread the ball around a lot more

With that said, I think we'll be one of the best defenses Oregon will have faced till that point and certainly wont give up 7-8 TDs.

But ofcourse before we look to the ducks, lets get those bears running back to berkeley.

One at a time! Beat the Bears! Go Devils!