Good Afternoon Mates...
Today's Topic = How big was our win against the Ducks..??
I slept in late this morning and then my significant other, who lived in Oregon for awhile, made me a victory breakfast of eggs, blueberry pumpkin pancakes, bacon and assorted fruit...
Fried duck was not on the breakfast menu, since the Devils took care of that last night, by the skin of their teeth, on national TV, no less...
That big win broke a four game Sun Devil losing streak and all but eliminated the Ducks from national playoff contention, while putting huge smiles on all of our faces today...
However, Utah is still in the national hunt after dismantling the Cats last night in Tucson, 35-7...
I looked at the PAC conference standings this morning and there are only three teams (that's right, only three teams) that have winning records in the PAC, so far this season....
The Utes are 7-1, the Trojans 7-2 and the Ducks 7-1 while UCLA and Oregon St are 4-4...
ASU, Colorado, Cal, Wash, Wazzu, and Stanford all have just 3 PAC wins to their credit, thus far, while AU only has two wins, to date...
OSU probably isn't going to beat Oregon next weekend and UCLA could beat Cal at home but no one else, of that three-win group, is going to end up with a winning PAC record...pretty pathetic, right..??
So, the conference could only have four teams (or only a third of the PAC teams), at the end of the season, that have winning conference records and what exactly does that mean for the league and, more specifically, for the Sun Devils moving forward..??
Does this mean that the PAC is a really bad conference for the most part..??
Or, does it mean that there is a lot of mediocre parity for two-thirds of the conference..??
And, most importantly, does this mean that ASU is only behind the Utes, Trojans and Ducks in terms of talent and coaching, keeping in mind, that the other three-win programs could point out the same thing, as the Devils, moving forward..??
When I looked at the season before it started I surmised that ASU had enough talent to compete and beat all of the other 3 win teams in the South and North but we lost to Colorado while beating both Cal and Wazzu...
We also had enough to beat both UCLA and OSU but bombed at UCLA and then lost a close game on the road to OSU...
The upset of the Ducks was big since the Ducks were ranked #6 in the nation and were a national title contender, plus it was on national TV at prime time with a national crew doing the game...
Question: was the win over the Ducks enough to remove all of the damage done over the past month of losses at ASU..??
The announcers kept talking about how Herm is really building the program at ASU but couldn't the same thing be said about the new coaches at UCLA, Colorado, OSU, etc..??
The only program that doesn't look like it is getting anywhere is AU at this point, right..??
So, what does this all mean for the Sun Devils..??
That there is light at the end of the tunnel or that it doesn't really mean much anything, at all, since we are in the same boat as most other teams in the PAC..??
I thought, as you all know, that the Devils could end up winning 8 or more games this season and they may end up close to that but I think we have under-performed a little bit, even if we beat the Cats and win a bowl game...
What do you think..??
What the PAC standings tell me about the future is that the whole conference is pretty wide open and that there really aren't any dominant programs, although the Ducks and Trojans are still getting a lot of elite talent, while the rest of the PAC, not so much...
Looking at the conference, who is really all that much ahead of the Sun Devils at this point..??
In other big news, the wrestling team took down #1 ranked Penn St on Friday and the basketball team seems to be doing pretty well, so far, too...
Bonus question: who thinks that our game against the Cats is going to be just a "walk in the park" type game since they have the worst PAC record so far..??
Not me, that's for sure...
Also, who wasn't squirming in their pants once the Ducks got going in the fourth quarter and cut the Devils lead to only three points, with plenty of time left in the game..??
I confess that I was squirming and trying to think of what I would prepare for my sweetheart this morning if we ended up losing to the Ducks...
That's how big the game was for me...
Have a great Thanksgiving...
G'day Mates and Go Devils!!!
Today's Topic = How big was our win against the Ducks..??
I slept in late this morning and then my significant other, who lived in Oregon for awhile, made me a victory breakfast of eggs, blueberry pumpkin pancakes, bacon and assorted fruit...
Fried duck was not on the breakfast menu, since the Devils took care of that last night, by the skin of their teeth, on national TV, no less...
That big win broke a four game Sun Devil losing streak and all but eliminated the Ducks from national playoff contention, while putting huge smiles on all of our faces today...
However, Utah is still in the national hunt after dismantling the Cats last night in Tucson, 35-7...
I looked at the PAC conference standings this morning and there are only three teams (that's right, only three teams) that have winning records in the PAC, so far this season....
The Utes are 7-1, the Trojans 7-2 and the Ducks 7-1 while UCLA and Oregon St are 4-4...
ASU, Colorado, Cal, Wash, Wazzu, and Stanford all have just 3 PAC wins to their credit, thus far, while AU only has two wins, to date...
OSU probably isn't going to beat Oregon next weekend and UCLA could beat Cal at home but no one else, of that three-win group, is going to end up with a winning PAC record...pretty pathetic, right..??
So, the conference could only have four teams (or only a third of the PAC teams), at the end of the season, that have winning conference records and what exactly does that mean for the league and, more specifically, for the Sun Devils moving forward..??
Does this mean that the PAC is a really bad conference for the most part..??
Or, does it mean that there is a lot of mediocre parity for two-thirds of the conference..??
And, most importantly, does this mean that ASU is only behind the Utes, Trojans and Ducks in terms of talent and coaching, keeping in mind, that the other three-win programs could point out the same thing, as the Devils, moving forward..??
When I looked at the season before it started I surmised that ASU had enough talent to compete and beat all of the other 3 win teams in the South and North but we lost to Colorado while beating both Cal and Wazzu...
We also had enough to beat both UCLA and OSU but bombed at UCLA and then lost a close game on the road to OSU...
The upset of the Ducks was big since the Ducks were ranked #6 in the nation and were a national title contender, plus it was on national TV at prime time with a national crew doing the game...
Question: was the win over the Ducks enough to remove all of the damage done over the past month of losses at ASU..??
The announcers kept talking about how Herm is really building the program at ASU but couldn't the same thing be said about the new coaches at UCLA, Colorado, OSU, etc..??
The only program that doesn't look like it is getting anywhere is AU at this point, right..??
So, what does this all mean for the Sun Devils..??
That there is light at the end of the tunnel or that it doesn't really mean much anything, at all, since we are in the same boat as most other teams in the PAC..??
I thought, as you all know, that the Devils could end up winning 8 or more games this season and they may end up close to that but I think we have under-performed a little bit, even if we beat the Cats and win a bowl game...
What do you think..??
What the PAC standings tell me about the future is that the whole conference is pretty wide open and that there really aren't any dominant programs, although the Ducks and Trojans are still getting a lot of elite talent, while the rest of the PAC, not so much...
Looking at the conference, who is really all that much ahead of the Sun Devils at this point..??
In other big news, the wrestling team took down #1 ranked Penn St on Friday and the basketball team seems to be doing pretty well, so far, too...
Bonus question: who thinks that our game against the Cats is going to be just a "walk in the park" type game since they have the worst PAC record so far..??
Not me, that's for sure...
Also, who wasn't squirming in their pants once the Ducks got going in the fourth quarter and cut the Devils lead to only three points, with plenty of time left in the game..??
I confess that I was squirming and trying to think of what I would prepare for my sweetheart this morning if we ended up losing to the Ducks...
That's how big the game was for me...
Have a great Thanksgiving...
G'day Mates and Go Devils!!!
