ASU welcomes time off

The Arizona State football team takes the field next on Thanksgiving, but coach Dennis Erickson is already thankful for the bye week that his beat-up team will enjoy beforehand.

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“I think it’s necessary for us,” said Erickson, whose team remained ninth in the Associated Press rankings but moved to eighth in the USA Today (coaches) and Harris Interactive polls and Bowl Championship Series standings.

“We’re hurting, like most teams are at this time of the year. I think this extra time will enable us to get those guys back. The bye helps us get healthy and our bodies rested. It has been a long year.”

ASU hosts Southern California on Nov. 22 in a game that could be for second place in the Pac-10 and a BCS game berth.

Few Sun Devil players need time off more than quarterback Rudy Carpenter, who will undergo a MRI exam on his right thumb, which was aggravated during Saturday’s victory at UCLA.

It is believed that there is no additional damage to the thumb, which was sprained against California on Oct. 27, Erickson said.

“It’s the same as it was — swollen up,” Erickson said. “We won’t throw him early in the week. He’ll throw later in the week.”

Carpenter sat out ASU’s second last offensive possession but returned to engineer two critical first downs — one on a quarterback scramble — to bleed most of the time off the clock. “Popped” was how he described the thumb afterward.

“He’s a tough guy who wants to play,” Erickson said. “He’s playing with a lot of pain with the thumb. We have a lot of guys playing with pain on this team. That’s the nature of the game. We have a whole bunch of guys on this team who have fought through injuries, and that’s why we have won nine games.”

Defensive tackle Michael Marquardt aggravated the same ankle injury that forced him to miss two games earlier in the year and is questionable for the USC game. So is offensive lineman Zach Krula, who on Friday underwent arthroscopic surgery on his left knee.

Safety Jeremy Payton (ankle) and defensive end Dane Guthrie (concussion) are among players that should return on Thanksgiving.

“As a team, if you stay healthy or get your injured guys back, those are the teams that survive,” Erickson said. “We’ve had our share of injuries, although we haven’t had it like some.

“(Star running back) Ryan Torain’s (season-ending foot) injury is tough, but if you get your injured guys back, that’s the key.”

The Sun Devils will practice Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and possibly Friday.

They will reconvene to begin their typical game-week practice schedule — starting two days earlier — on Sunday.

Erickson has experience playing and coaching on Thanksgiving Day, dating back to his days as a quarterback at Everett (Wash.) High School, when his team annually played against rival Cascade High, coached by his father, Robert.

“Those days, the turkey dinner afterward wasn’t that great,” Erickson said. “He won the first year, but I got him a couple more times.”

SUN DEVILS FOLLOW-UP

Grading out

• Arizona State had his best game of the season returning kickoffs at UCLA on Saturday, Sun Devils coach Dennis Erickson said.

Rudy Burgess averaged 24.8 yards on four returns, thanks in part to a midgame adjustment that called for him to bring the ball to the far side of the field, rather than the short side.

“We opened up our returns a little,” Erickson said. “Rudy came really close to breaking a couple of those.”

• After last week’s red-zone frustrations at Oregon, Erickson vowed that ASU would be more diversified inside the opponents’ 20-yard line. In the second quarter on Saturday, quarterback Rudy Carpenter hit receiver Kyle Williams on a crossing pattern for a 9-yard touchdown.

“They blitzed us, and we made a play on a slant route,” Erickson said. “We have run that route on the field quite a bit, just not in the red zone.”

Notes

• Erickson is sending tape to the Pac-10 of an ASU delay-of-game penalty on Saturday, which he said was the result of an officiating mistake.

In the third quarter, the Sun Devils, coming out of a timeout, were flagged for a delay. Erickson said that the officials did not afford his offense enough time after the signaling that play could resume.

“The official stood over the ball, walked away, and blew the whistle five seconds later,” Erickson said. “That wasn’t our fault. I can’t figure that out. That was a mechanical mistake by the crew.”

• Erickson is 49-15-1 in November during his college coaching career.

Looking ahead

Southern California, ASU’s opponent on Thanksgiving night at Sun Devil Stadium (6 p.m., ESPN), has gotten healthy and won four of its past five games — the loss was to second-ranked Oregon — since its infamous meltdown against Stanford.

In two games since his return from a broken middle finger on his throwing hand, quarterback John David Booty has been unspectacular, but solid. Running back Chauncey Washington was spectacular in Saturday’s victory at California, running for a career-high 220 yards.

The Trojans’ defense — led by linemen Sedrick Ellis, Lawrence Jackson and Everson Griffin (an Avondale Agua Fria High School graduate), linebacker Keith Rivers and safety Kevin Ellison — is ranked third in the nation.

“You watch them on defense, and they are in a different world,” Erickson said.

“Offensively, they have Booty back in there and are making plays and have a lot of weapons. It’s USC, what can you say? All we can do is prepare. Both teams are in a good position (in the Pac-10), so it will be a battle.”