By James Romo

The Sun Devils opened up the 2012 campaign on Thursday night doing exactly what many recent ASU teams haven’t been able to do.  They dominated a lesser opponent on all phases of the game for a full sixty minutes.  It was just two seasons ago that ASU allowed NAU to hang around to within 7 points going into the fourth quarter.  Many will say that nothing was learned about the 2012 Devils last night as they point to the weak opponent that was put on a platter in front of them.  Well, you can only play who they put in front of you, and every part of what we saw during the first game of the Todd Graham era at ASU was very impressive.

The Sun Devil defense had zero penalties on Thursday night.

ASU took their first two possessions 73 and 81 yards each for touchdowns and a 14-0 first quarter lead.  Sun Devil Nation took a collective sigh of relief after seeing two different quarterbacks architect each drive for scores and putting this one away early.  Taylor Kelly managed a high-power offense without trying to do too much.  He threw accurate balls (15-19 for 247 yards) and tucked it and ran when he wanted (6 rushes, 43 yards).  As a result, the Lumberjack defense had no answer for a read option offense that was firing on all cylinders and tearing off big play after big play by several weapons at the skill positions. Michael Eubank was brought in for short yardage situations and had only one pass attempt, but ran seven times for 36 yards and a touchdown.  Tight end Chris Coyle, who has toiled in an offense for the past two years that didn’t use a tight end, had a coming out party with 65 receiving yards.  In what surely made Frank Kush smile somewhere inside Sun Devil Stadium, ASU showed that they could line up in an “I” formation with 3 tight ends and a fullback, and play smash mouth football.  The Devils’ “run first” offense racked up 305 yards of rushing and saw Cameron Marshall (2 TD’s), Marion Grice (3 TD’s), Michael Eubank (1 TD), and DJ Foster (1 TD) all ride an impressive offensive line performance to paydirt.  Newcomers DJ Foster, Marion Grice, and Richard Smith gave a glimpse of what kind of explosiveness we can expect going forward in the Todd Graham era.

The coaches and players were “all business” against NAU.

The defense, coming into this season as a huge unknown, due mostly to inexperience and a heavy reliance on players making their first start at the division one level, possessed a controlled violence from the opening whistle and maintained intensity throughout the depth chart.  Coaches typically don’t open up the defensive playbook in games against inferior opponents, but ASU was routinely bringing pressure from 5 and 6 players from just about every position outside of cornerback.  Highly touted junior college transfer Chris Young, who has only been in the program for only a month, made the biggest splash as he consistently disrupted plays in the backfield from his “spur” linebacker position.  All eyes were going to be on a much maligned secondary after a series of broken coverages allowing for big plays going back to the middle of the 2011 season and well into fall camp this season.  They appeared to be very assignment sound, aggressive, and didn’t give up the huge chunks of yardage in the passing game that we’d become accustomed to seeing.  In all, the defense only gave up 237 yards, was able to come up with 2 sacks, 9 tackles for loss, and 3 interceptions including a pick 6 by Brandon Magee.

This coaching staff has clearly put its fingerprint on more than just an offensive and defensive scheme.  Every aspect of the team looks night and day different than recent Sun Devil squads.  The sideline was all business as the team was organized, focused, and without any players being uninvolved with the proceedings on the field.  That, in and of itself, is a testament to the job this staff has done to create the “all in” atmosphere that’s been preached for months.  And there was a noticeable absence of overt celebrating, taunting, and trash-talking on the field.  Players hustled on and off the field.  Even the casual fans that I spoke with saw a marked improvement in sportsmanship and uniform appearance.

Team Captain Brandon Magee leads the post game celebration.

Blowout games against an inferior opponent are always going to have inflated stats.  I could list a ton of video game numbers, but at the end of the day it wouldn’t mean a whole lot since it came against our little brothers up north.  But there was one stat that stands out as impressive as any, regardless of who stood on the opposite sideline.  The Devils, yes our Devils, had a total of four penalties for thirty yards.  To take it one step further, there wasn’t a single flag thrown against the defense.  How many times over the last few years has our defense made a stop, only to keep the opponent’s drive alive as result of a mental mistake resulting in yellow laundry all over the field?  This was a team recently ranked among the nation’s worse in penalty yards per game.  So for those that will point at NAU and say that we learned nothing about our team on Thursday night because of an inferior opponent, I’ll say that we witnessed a new disciplined era of Sun Devil football.  As for me, I can’t wait to see Sparky stomp on the Illinois bus next week at Sun Devil Stadium.