After a disappointing loss to Tulsa last week, the Lobos look to bounce back on the road against ASU on Friday night. This is one of the two toughest games the Lobos will play this season, and an upset victory would make everyone forget about last weekend.
So who are we playing?
If UNM is coming off of a disappointing loss, ASU is coming off of a disappointing win. While most of the national attention last week was focused on Arkansas losing and Auburn going to overtime against FCS opponents, ASU has a bit of a scare against the FCS Cal Poly. It wasn’t until midway through the fourth quarter that ASU took the lead for good, so their 35-21 victory wasn’t nearly as satisfying as their fans were hoping for. Before that game, the Sun Devils were beat by Texas A&M in a “neutral” site game down in Houston, potentially ending their hopes for an FBS playoff spot already. All of that shouldn’t leave us with the impression that ASU is a bad team. In fact, all expectations are that they’ll bounce back to compete for a Pac-12 South title and a top-25 spot.
ASU’s offense has been explosive the past couple of seasons. Last year, behind wide receiver Jaelen Strong, who was a third-round draft pick by the Houston Texans, the Sun Devils featured a deadly passing attack regardless of their quarterback. They started their season with senior QB Taylor Kelly, who was very effective until he got injured. Then-junior Mike Bercovici took his place and posted great numbers against USC and Stanford, giving the Sun Devils two important Pac-12 wins. Kelly returned from injury and started the rest of the season, performing well aside from the Oregon State game, in which ASU suffered only its second loss of the season. Bercovici came into this season as the clear starter and hasn’t really done anything to change that in their first two games. He’s a fairly accurate passer, completing 62.5% of his career passes and only throwing 5 interceptions in his 269 pass attempts. He isn’t much of a running threat, though, with most of his rushing “attempts” being the result of sacks. ASU also seems to like to have their QB’s punt occasionally for a fake, fake punt, so that might be worth looking out for.
ASU’s best offensive weapon is D.J. Foster, who went from being the Sun Devils’ leading rusher last season to their leading receiver this season and is expected to be drafted in the mid-rounds of the NFL Draft next year. He was initially moved out to receiver because of the team’s apparent depth at running back and perceived shortage of receivers, but with the loss of RB Kalen Ballage (who currently is out with mono), that plan has changed a bit and he has seen time lined up both as a wide out and as a running back. Demario Richard has served as the team’s primary running back so far this season, racking up 123 yards and two touchdowns against Cal Poly last week. Aside from those two, ASU is still looking for some consistent production out of their other offensive skill players, but they do have plenty of talent to go around. Like many other teams these days, ASU likes to play fairly fast and aggressively, so hopefully UNM learned a few lessons against Tulsa.
ASU’s defense is returning a lot of their players from last season’s team, which was ranked 22nd in defensive FEI. They have a couple of players in their secondary who might get drafted, in CB Lloyd Carrington and SS Jordan Simone, and feature a deep group of linebackers. They also return much of their defensive line, including a few huge run-stoppers. My guess is that the Lobos might have more success on the edges again than they will trying to run it into the heart of this defense. ASU does play an aggressive defensive style, trying to put pressure on the offense and force turnovers. The Lobos will need to play smart and not force any bad decisions if they want to have any success against the Sun Devil defense.
Team Comparison
Because it’s early in the season, the offensive and defensive FEI ratings haven’t been updated (they won’t until around week 7). So for now, we’ll take a look back at where the teams stood last year. In the chart below, which shows the same offensive and defensive FEI data from our season preview, we can see how both UNM and ASU performed last year.
It shouldn’t be much of a surprise that, given how good of a season they had last year (9-3 in the regular season and a win vs. Duke in the Sun Bowl), ASU was in the “good offense/good defense” quadrant. In fact, they were ranked 16th in offensive efficiency and 22nd in defensive efficiency, showing a really strong balance. Because of their losses on offense, it wouldn’t be shocking for their offensive efficiency to dip a little, but they do return most of their defense, so I would expect that to at least stay the same if not improve.
The season-to-date stats aren’t particularly informative at this point, given that each team has only played one FBS team, but for the sake of making us feel a little better of this matchup, I’ll show them anyway. The first two plots show the breakdowns of yards gained by both teams and the yards allowed by both teams. As we can see, UNM has gained more yards on offense and allowed fewer yards on defense, which, of course, means very little right now. What is more interesting is simply looking at the offensive profiles. Here we see the stark difference in the way the two teams approach their offense, with UNM preferring to get most of their yards on the ground and ASU getting theirs through the air. These contrasting styles will certainly make for a game that’s interesting to watch.
In the following plot, we see the difference between the teams’ points scored and points allowed. That 66-0 game against Mississippi State will make the Lobos look good for a while, or until I decide to stop including FCS teams in the calculation. Without those, the two distributions would look awfully similar, as ASU lost their one FBS game 38-17 and the Lobos lost theirs 40-21. Again, this doesn’t mean much right now, but it’s kind of fun to look at.
Will the triple option be successful?
Arizona State’s game against Cal Poly gave ASU fans a bit of a scare, as the Sun Devils were having a little trouble stopping Cal Poly’s triple option offense and were tied as late as halfway through the fourth quarter. In some ways, this should give UNM hope, as they’re taking a presumably better version of the same offense into Tempe. ASU was having a difficult time playing defense with the sort of discipline necessary to completely shut down that type of rushing attack and if that continues, UNM should have a lot of success running the ball. However, a big advantage that the Lobos have had against other teams is simply that they run a very different offense than most other teams, making them difficult to prepare for. Now that ASU has faced a triple option offense, their hope is that they’ll be more ready for it this week. If they haven’t figured it out, then this game has the potential to be interesting. But if they have figured it out, it could be a really long night for the Lobos.
Can we get to the quarterback?
In a few season previews, the Arizona State offensive line has been singled out as a potential weakness of the team and they lived up to that billing in their first game. Texas A&M was able to get nine sacks and an additional five tackles for a loss. One key to stopping the ASU offense will be to keep constant pressure on Bercovici, who is not known as a particularly mobile quarterback, and limit the plays where our secondary has to cover their receivers deep. The Lobos had limited success getting to the quarterback against Tulsa, so a good effort from the defensive line and linebackers would go a long way towards a potential upset.
Will we play with more discipline?
Last weekend, the Lobos shot themselves in the foot with penalties until they ran out of toes. It was way too common for a big play, a promising drive, or a potential stop to be ruined with a personal foul and that absolutely can’t happen if they’re going to stay in this game. ASU is going to be tough enough to beat on its own; they don’t need the Lobos’ help.
Prediction
The line for this game is sitting at ASU by 27.5, which feels a little high to me. That said, I still think that ASU wins something like 48-31. I hope I’m proven wrong.
What: The University of New Mexico (1-1) at Arizona State University (1-1)
Where: Sun Devil Stadium, Tempe Arizona
When: Friday, September 18 at 8pm MT
Where to Watch: Pac12 Network
How to Listen: 770 KOB