Success puts Sun Devils, Ducks in spotlight

Twenty-seven years ago today, Dennis Erickson had front-and-center seats for one of the craziest Saturdays in college football history.

Carpenter throws, will be ready for Oregon game

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On Nov. 1, 1980, little San Jose State, where Erickson served as offensive coordinator, visited a Baylor team that had an All-America linebacker named Mike Singletary. However, the Spartans’ one-back, slot-receiver offense — then in its infancy — frustrated Singletary and his defensive mates en route to a 30-22 San Jose State victory over the undefeated, 10th-ranked Bears.

The Spartans set off just one of the seismic shifts in the college football world that day, as three other unbeatens — No. 1 Alabama, to Mississippi State; No. 2 UCLA, to Arizona; and No. 6 North Carolina, to Oklahoma — lost.

For years, that Saturday was regarded as wackiness personified in the sport. In 2007, it has been close to the norm.

“My goodness, I don’t recall a season where we’ve had so many teams across the nation pop up, get hit, fall down, and others come up and get beat,” said Tom Hansen, the Pac-10’s commissioner since 1983. “It’s a really risky time to be at or near the top.”

And one of the beneficiaries is Dennis Erickson, who will, once again, be front and center on a big college football Saturday.

A rash of upsets has helped expedite the rise of Erickson’s Sun Devils (8-0 overall, 5-0 Pac-10), to fourth in the Bowl Championship Series standings. This week, ASU visits Oregon (7-1, 4-1), No. 5 in the BCS standings, in the showdown of the season in the Pac-10, if not the country.

Not California-USC, as was expected when the schools were 1-2 in the preseason Pac-10 media poll, USC a unanimous No. 1 selection.

ASU-Oregon. The game that, until this week, was slated to be televised only in Arizona and Oregon. Now, the “College GameDay” guys will be in Eugene, Ore., where ESPN will beam the proceedings to the rest of the nation.

“We didn’t expect this game to be a very big deal before the year,” Erickson said. “But it has turned into a big deal because we have been successful.”

Giants have stumbled all around them, especially in the Pac-10, helping the Sun Devils and Ducks get to this point. And the reward to be reaped on Saturday is gigantic, as the winner jumps on the fast track to the Rose Bowl — or maybe the Bowl Championship Series title game.

“It’s one of those things that when you keep on winning and getting more attention, every game becomes the biggest game of the year,” ASU quarterback Rudy Carpenter said. “I think Washington was the biggest game of the year going into the bye week and then all of the sudden, Cal was the biggest game of the year because we hadn’t beat a nationally ranked component.

“Oregon is now the biggest game of the year because we are two of the top teams in the Pac-10 and in the country. It is something we have to get used to as a team, and I think we’ve responded well so far.”

This season, 13 top-10 teams have lost to an unranked opponent.

Then-No. 2 USC was beaten by Stanford on Oct. 6. California has suffered the indignity twice — the Golden Bears, then No. 2, lost to Oregon State on Oct. 13, then, ranked 10th, were topped by UCLA a week later.

Meanwhile, ASU and Oregon, save for the Ducks’ loss to a Cal squad ranked No. 3 on Sept. 29, have survived.

“Any time you can get a win in the Pac-10, that’s a big win,” Oregon quarterback Dennis Dixon said. “Everybody talks about the SEC being (so competitive), but being in the Pac-10 and being on the field for the games, I’d have to say we have a similar situation in this conference.”

Last week, ASU and Oregon likely ended the BCS hopes of the Pac-10’s power duo, with the Sun Devils beating California and the Ducks edging USC.

Now, the Nov. 10 Cal-USC contest is for more modest goals. On Saturday, the spotlight shines on two unexpected aspirants for Pac-10 supremacy.

“I think we were picked to finish sixth in the conference, which made me smile inside because I thought we were a better team than that,” Oregon coach Mike Bellotti said. “We used that to challenge and motivate our players.

“ASU was a bowl team the last three years, so it wasn’t like they weren’t a good football team. They are. They are perfect, they’re undefeated and ahead of us in the standings and rankings. It’s great.”

No. 6 Arizona state at No. 4 OREGON

3:30 p.m. Saturday, FSN Arizona