6-0 Devils still think they can do better

The Arizona State football team walked into its locker room at Martin Stadium last week, having left the field after a last-minute, come-from-behind victory over Washington State.

A win on the Palouse is one of the Pac-10’s more noteworthy accomplishments. However, amidst the echoes of clacking cleats reverberating in the tunnel, middle linebacker Morris Wooten indicated he was unimpressed.

“We have not played our best game yet,” Wooten said.

ASU’s first-half schedule is considered one of the most friendly among Bowl Championship Series schools, so doubts about the Sun Devils being as good as their No. 14 national ranking persist.

Regarding such skepticism, the team believes it has a lot of ability and potential left untapped. As ASU (6-0 overall, 3-0 Pac-10) reaches the halfway point of the season and the competition gets tougher, that higher gear needs to be found.

“Perseverance can lead to good things,” safety Josh Barrett said. “We’ve been looking at the films and breaking it down and seeing what mistakes we need to get fixed. To know that we’ve done a lot of things wrong and still prevailed, that is really a motivator. We have the talent to be as good as we want to be.”

The stretch to end the regular season — California, at Oregon, at UCLA, Southern California and Arizona — consists of four schools that beat the Sun Devils last year and an in-state rivalry game, where anything can happen.

ASU’s immediate assignment, however, is today’s game against a Washington team that, while 2-3, has faced perhaps the toughest schedule in the nation and will not be awed by the Sun Devils’ résumé.

It all adds up to a six-game test of will first-year coach Dennis Erickson believes his team is prepared for.

“In terms of resiliency, these guys have shown me a lot,” Erickson said. “They believe in what they are doing, believe in each other and have confidence in what we are trying to teach them. The biggest thing is that they believe they can win, and when you get that stuff going, it just builds from there.”

In recent years, ASU has built a national reputation as a squad that usually enjoys early-season success, but wilts when the heat is turned up against better opposition. That stigma was fueled by the Sun Devils’ 3-21 record against ranked teams from 2000-06.

ASU has not played a ranked school this season, but has come from behind to win three games. It erased an early 14-point deficit against Colorado and dug out of a 19-point hole to defeat Oregon State.

“Our coaches do not panic,” wide receiver Kyle Williams said. “We get down, and the feeling is, 'OK, we’re down now, but let’s see how long that lasts.’ We know it won’t last for long. We’ve shown that we can fight for all four quarters.”

Those comebacks have the Sun Devils confident they can hang in with elite opposition, so much so they are starting to publicly speak the three letters — BCS — that have not been mentioned since before the 2005 and ’06 seasons, when ASU had a preseason Top 25 ranking and offense expected to put up big numbers.

When the midway point of both seasons arrived, those big ambitions did not come close to fruition. In 2007, the Sun Devils can still harbor big-bowl dreams.

“We know we have a legitimate chance to accomplish the goals we set earlier in the year,” quarterback Rudy Carpenter said. “Whereas in prior years, by this time, we were kind of already out of the goals we had set for ourselves.

“I think it makes the locker room a much more positive place, and guys want to go after the goals we set at the beginning of the year.”

As it heads into the second half of the year, ASU has a required checklist.

Its ability to combat an opposing pass rush needs to improve. More consistency must be developed at the cornerback spot opposite Justin Tryon. The one concern on special teams — punting — appears to have been addressed after Thomas Weber took over the job last week and performed well.

Shoring up those areas will go a long way toward the Sun Devils’ finding their best game.

“Guys are stepping up and coming to the call and playing well,” Barrett said. “We’re 7-0 — or, I guess, we’re going to be 7-0 after this week — and we’re in a good position to get a BCS bid. That’s where we want to get to.”