Sun Devils looking to start over

In the preseason, Arizona State was ranked 15th and picked to finish second in the Pac-10, lofty praise that, given the current state of the Sun Devils, is hard to believe ever existed.

ASU improvement due to blocking tight end

Even prognosticators who expected good things for ASU knew that a five-game stretch of Georgia, at California, at Southern California, Oregon and Oregon State would be challenging. However, the September stunner at the hands of Nevada-Las Vegas and a shoddy offense — further slowed by injuries to quarterback Rudy Carpenter, running back Keegan Herring and receiver Chris McGaha — have combined to make the last month especially brutal.

As a result, the Sun Devils reach the season’s halfway point at 2-4, 1-2 in Pac-10 play.

With his team’s next game against Oregon on Sept. 25, coach Dennis Erickson is hoping to use this week’s bye to recapture the feel of training camp, when optimism is high.

“We’re starting the year all over again,” Erickson said on Sunday. “There are new opportunities for us. We can have a successful second half of the season, and that’s how the coaches and players are looking at it. The Oregon game will be like a season opener for us.”

With fall weather finally arriving in Arizona, it would behoove the Sun Devils’ offense to find a leaf to turn over. Four games’ worth of spotty play reached a nadir at USC on Saturday, when ASU was shut out for the first time since 2004.

The Sun Devils are 116th out of 119 bowl subdivision teams in rushing offense, at 83.7 yards a game. They are 82nd in the nation (and seventh in the Pac-10) in total offense (333.8 yards). As a result, offensive coordinator Rich Olson has been a target of angry fans.

In September, Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer — with his coordinator, Brian Stinespring, under fire — half-seriously offered to give anyone 10 minutes to articulate to him an ideal offensive game plan. While Erickson did not go that far, he said that no “magic formula” of major changes could help at this point in the season.

“People that think that are people that don’t know much about football,” Erickson said.

“Between myself and Rich, we’ve spent hours and hours during the week watching tape, finding strengths and weaknesses and trying to create mismatches. So, when we call plays, we’re not pulling things out of a hat.

“You have to do what you believe in, what you’ve practiced since the spring and what worked for us last year. Hopefully, we’ll get better, because there is no secret.”

ASU is better off making tweaks, Erickson said, such as with the two-tight-end formation designed to force opposing defenses out of the Cover 2 formation. Early in Saturday’s game, the Sun Devils were successful with new looks and motion out of the two-TE set before mistakes and penalties caused the offense’s bottom to fall out.

The Sun Devils’ schedule load lightens considerably after the next two games vs. Oregon and Oregon State. It is possible that they will have to end the regular season on a four-game winning streak to secure a bowl bid.

With a 6-6 record, an ASU postseason trip would not be as exotic as last year’s Holiday Bowl experience, but the game — and the 15 extra practices that come with it — would be vital to a team that has played a school-record 10 true freshmen.

“Depth is our problem right now, but building something takes time,” Erickson said.

“We’ve got to win games, that’s the bottom line. And we’re capable of doing that with the team we have.”