Devils make big plays for win in Pac-10 opener

As Arizona State prepared to open Pac-10 play against Oregon State, outside linebacker Robert James remembered last year’s game — a Beavers rout — and said something that proved to be prophetically ironic.

SLIDESHOW: View photos from the game

“We want to start strong,” James said after a practice last week. “We can’t let them have their way with us.”

On Saturday night at Sun Devil Stadium, the Oregon State Beavers had a smorgasbord of their way. Nine minutes into the game, they had a 19-point lead, and ASU had seven offensive plays, no first downs and minus-37 yards of total offense.

It had the makings of another one of those sleepwalking performances that were chonic in Tempe in recent seasons, but the Sun Devils made a big play, and another, then another.

The end result was a 44-32 ASU victory, and the Dennis Erickson bandwagon evidently picking up speed.

“College football is a crazy game, but coming back like we did — just in the Colorado game (two weeks ago) — I said then that it would help us later in the season, and you saw the results of that (on Saturday),” quarterback Rudy Carpenter said. “Every Pac-10 team is capable of coming back against another, and it shows that we can’t give up, ever.”

One of the keys in the ASU comeback was Carpenter’s ability to make plays by scrambling, most notably on a second-quarter play in which he fumbled the ball, picked it up, ran to his right and lofted the ball toward Michael Jones.

The wide receiver turned his head just in time to see the ball descending and pulled it in for a 64-yard touchdown, the Sun Devils’ first score.

ASU was a completely different team from then on, as another TD by Jones, three scores from Ryan Torain and five interceptions by the defense piled on the Beavers.

Carpenter completed 25 of 36 passes for 361 yards with four touchdowns and an interception. Jones caught four passes for a career-high 124 yards.

Torain had 95 yards and a touchdown on 26 carries. He made two receptions, both for touchdowns, including a 48-yarder.

“The players believe they can win, and the bottom line is that if you know that and can deal with adversity, you will win some games. You don’t want to get behind 19 points, but that good (comeback) quality about us jumped out.”

Two weeks ago, the Sun Devils (4-0 overall, 1-0 Pac-10) spotted Colorado a two-touchdown lead and came back to win convincingly. However, that was against a squad considered inferior to Oregon State (2-2, 0-1), and ASU did not look nearly as bad early that night as it did on Saturday.

A snap sailed over the head of punter Jonathan Johnson, resulting in a safety. The Sun Devils had no answer for the Beavers’ quick-hitting offense, and they could not run the ball and stretch a fast, athletic defense.

“We weren’t on all cylinders,” Erickson said.

“But the thing is, we kept competing. We came back in the first half and shut them down pretty good in the second half. I thought we responded very well.”