Summer Series: Sun Devils Struggling Heading into 2022 and Trip to Stillwater

Lots of talk about this being a W before we start the season and try to figure out if (1) we have a running back who will approximate Warren; (2) whether Spencer can avoid turnovers and more consistently hit some chunk play passes; and (3) if our defense can stay anywhere close to last year with new linebackers starting, two new safeties, new play caller and Antwine gone in the line.
So let's don't chalk this game up too soon......we did that with Central Michigan once I recall.

Bleh... I'm chalking this one up as a win.

A major win (3 scores)

If we're going to have any real success in 2022, then games like these first 3 must be total blowouts.

(that Central Michigan team was good, and they had an NFL QB who ate us up)

Orangeheart72 said:

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Lots of talk about this being a W before we start the season and try to figure out if (1) we have a running back who will approximate Warren; (2) whether Spencer can avoid turnovers and more consistently hit some chunk play passes; and (3) if our defense can stay anywhere close to last year with new linebackers starting, two new safeties, new play caller and Antwine gone in the line.
So let's don't chalk this game up too soon......we did that with Central Michigan once I recall.

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Ummm, Central Michigan had a lot of help from IGNORANT OFFICIALS THE LAST TWO PLAYS OF THE GAME AS I RECALL back in 2016!

Point was, and Gundy generally seems to get teams to avoid this, don't overlook someone who has some talent. ASU will be talented at QB and across the board so don't sleep. The extra play for Central Michigan shouldn't have made a difference had we played better for the first 3.5 quarters. But it did because the game was so close still in the last minute.

Orangeheart72 said:

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Point was, and Gundy generally seems to get teams to avoid this, don't overlook someone who has some talent. ASU will be talented at QB and across the board so don't sleep. The extra play for Central Michigan shouldn't have made a difference had we played better for the first 3.5 quarters. But it did because the game was so close still in the last minute.

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I'm am more concerned about the UCM game this year than I am about the ASU game.... and frankly I'm not that worried about either.

if this is a conf champ caliber team, then none of us should worry one bit about the first 3 games.... they are simply warm-ups for game 4. We need to have some medium challenges to get the team on the same page.

last year we scraped by our first 3 opponents because the team was banged up, with Shane starting game one and the LT position in disarray and a bevy of green receivers. Game 2 wasn't much better even with Sanders return as we struggled to get a solid running game. The Boise game saw us having to use a walk-on at receiver but we still eked out a win.

I fully expect our start to this season to be much, much stronger than last year.