SportsRatings 2015 College Football Pre-season Top 128
| Arizona State Sun Devils (Pac-12 #7; South #4) |
 #25 |
2014 Results |
AP #12 USA #14 | Strength:#29 Success:#14 Overall:#24 |
| Record: 10-3 | Bowl: Beat Duke 36-31 |
||
| 2015 Outlook |
Picks: AP #15 | USA #16 | Lindy's #14 | Athlon #13 | Steele #27 | ESPN #20 |
||
| Record: 7-5 | Bowl odds: 87% Playoff odds: 1% | ||
ASU has become a trendy pick to challenge for a Pac-12 crown—even a Playoff spot, as Kirk Herbstreit recently predicted for the Sun Devils—but we think last year's team overachieved a bit and this one may come back down to earth.
| Offense 6 ret. starters |
2014 Scoring Offense: #18 (raw) #19 (adjusted for opposition) |
| 2015 Projected Scoring Offense: #29 (adjusted) |
The offense will miss the Kelly-Strong connection, but should be just fine anyway.
| Passing Game |
2014 Passing Rank: #33 (raw) #28 (adjusted) | 2014 Sacks Allowed (raw): #117 |
| 2015 Projected Passing Rank: #61 (adjusted) |
2015 Sacks Allowed (proj.): #117 |
Taylor Kelly (2,114 yards, 22 TDs, 5 int) played hurt much of his final year and his skills will be missed; Mike Bercovici (1,445 yards, 12 TDs, 4 int) did a good job filling in as needed and he'll take the reigns this season. The problem is at receiver where Jaelen Strong (1,165 yards, 10 TDs) is gone. Despite returning six players who topped 100 yards including DJ Foster (#2 w/688) who moves to receiver from running back, the loss of Strong and #3 Cameron Smith (596 yards) will be felt. Protection was pretty bad, too, at 39 sacks and pressure is likely to remain a problem—thought Bercovici was sacked just 9 times to Kelly's 29. We're probably downgrading the passing game too much, but in each area of consideration things were stronger last year.
| Rushing | 2014 Rushing Rank: #58 (raw) #57 (adjusted) | 2015 Projected Rushing Rank: #59 (adj.) |
DJ Foster had 1,081 yards last year but #2 Demario Richard (478) will be the main tailback this year as Foster moves to wide receiver. The offensive line should be decent enough with three starters back: Nick Kelly, Vi Teofilo, and Christian Westerman. The main thing they'll miss is Taylor Kelly's running (256 yards last year) as Mike Bercovici (16 yds) doesn't do that.
| 2014 Adjusted Stats: | Rush Defense: #46 Pass Defense per-game: #96 Per-attempt: #80 | ||
| Defense 9 ret. starters |
'14 Scoring Defense: #78 (raw) #49 (adjusted) | '14 sacks: #13 | '14 picks: #32 |
| '15 Projected Scoring Defense: #36 (adjusted) |
'15 sacks: #12 | '15 picks: #54 | |
Last year ASU almost had a top 10 pass rush (in raw sacks, with 39) and despite the loss of Marcus Hardison (10 sacks) from the defensive line we see it remaining just as strong. The linebacker corps returns three of four starters including Laiu Moeakiola (5 sacks) and Salamo Fiso (7.5 tackles for loss) while the secondary also has three starters returning. They lose top tackler Damarious Randall (106 tackles, 8.5 tackles for loss) but #2 Jordan Simmons (100 tackles) is back. The defense should take a solid step up.
Special Teams/Situations
- Kicking Game: Punter Matt Haack (43.3 average) and placekicker Zane Gonzalez (22 of 27 field goals) are both back.
- Return Game: Kyle Middlebrooks was the team's main return man, averaging 6.1 on punts and 22.2 on kickoffs; he's gone.
- Turnovers projection: Overall it looks like turnovers will be worse for ASU this year. They were lucky on fumbles (+9 margin) and interception situation (QB and defense) looks a bit worse.
Coaching Hot Seat Ranking: #87 (COOL)
Todd Graham has improved the program since he got here, going 8-5, 10-4, and 10-3. This puts him in very safe territory—as long as he doesn't break any rules like his son Bo did, which led to his resignation as running backs coach.
Recruiting 2015 Recruiting Rank: #20 2014 Recruiting Rank: #16
Back-to-back top 25 recruiting class give hope that ASU's current run will continue. It's among the best in the Pac-12 this year.
2014 Recap
Arizona State was 3-0 against cupcake competition before getting destroyed by UCLA 62-27. Remarkably, from there the Sun Devils turned around and beat USC on a hail Mary—then went on a 5-game winning streak, beating 5 bowl teams. Unfortunately after crushing Notre Dame 55-31 they changed gears again and fell in overtime to Oregon State. They beat Washington State before losing a shootout with Arizona 42-35. In the Sun Bowl they denied Duke a bowl victory again, 36-31.
Last year's prediction: We ranked ASU #22 last year, and we think we got it basically correct. Sure, they finished 10-3 and in the top 15 in the polls, but with an final Strength of #29 and Overall power rating of #24, we're happy with our prediction. Of course, we projected a 7-5 season and the Sun Devils went 9-3, and in the end it's wins and losses that matter. In the game-by-game picks we missed the wins over USC and Washington, while giving them the Arizona game (50% by our odds).
2015 Outlook
|
Arizona State 2015 schedule & forecast |
||||||||
| 9/5 | Sat | @ | Texas A&M | 33% | L | |||
| 9/12 | Sat | vs. | Cal Poly | 98% | W | |||
| 9/18 | Fri | vs. | New Mexico | 96% | W | |||
| 9/26 | Sat | vs. | *USC | 39% | L | |||
| 10/3 | Sat | @ | *UCLA | 32% | L | |||
| 10/10 | Sat | vs. | *Colorado | 81% | W | |||
| 10/17 | Sat | @ | *Utah | 45% | L | |||
| 10/29 | Thu | vs. | *Oregon | 30% | L | |||
| 11/7 | Sat | @ | *Washington State | 72% | W | |||
| 11/14 | Sat | vs. | *Washington | 90% | W | |||
| 11/21 | Sat | vs. | *Arizona | 57% | W | |||
| 11/28 | Sat | @ | *California | 41% | L | |||
|
Straight up: 6-6 Cume: 7-5 Bowl eligible: 85%
|
||||||||
This year's projection is almost a carbon-copy of last year's, except there are fewer pure tossups games and we give the Sun Devils fewer wins outright in the game-by-game picks.
We count the Texas A&M game as a home game for the Aggies, which is part of the reason why ASU is an underdog. The next two games are practically freebies for the Sun Devils before they face USC and UCLA back-to-back. If ASU can come out of the first five games at 3-2 or better, they are doing ok.
Colorado at home should be a win, then Utah is perhaps the closest-contested game on the schedule. Oregon looks like a loss (doesn't it always?) but then Washington and Washington State are ripe for the picking (insert Apple Cup joke here). The Sun Devils get the all-important home field edge against Arizona this season, but they travel to California and that may be a very tough game this year.
As usual there is a lot of parity in the Pac-12 and Arizona State is caught in the middle of it. With a 9-game schedule and the added burden of a tough non-conference opponent (ASU has one every year, it seems), only a top ten team could carve out a superlative season. We don't think the Sun Devils are quite there.
More Previews • Full coverage of all 128 FBS teams
SportsRatings 2015 College Football Pre-season Top 128
Comments