Blogging with the Devils

Arizona at Arizona State

When: 6 p.m. Saturday
Where: Sun Devil Stadium
TV/Announcers: ESPN2/Mark Jones, Bob Davie and Stacey Dales
Radio: KTAR (620 AM)
Records: Arizona 5-6 overall, 4-4 Pac-10; ASU 9-2, 6-2
Rankings: Arizona unranked; ASU No. 13 Associated Press/No. 13 USA Today (coaches)/No. 13 Harris Interactive/No. 13 Bowl Championship Series standings
Series: Arizona leads 44-35-1 but has lost six of the last eight meetings
Last meeting: Nov. 25, 2006, at Tucson – ASU 28, Arizona 14
Tickets: Sold out

SUN DEVILS’ KEYS TO VICTORY

1. Make Willie watch out: Let’s be clear – this is not a suggestion that ASU go headhunting for Arizona quarterback Willie Tuitama. However, he has been knocked out of both of his previous Territorial Cup starts. Could the Sun Devils get in Tuitama’s head by getting in his face?

2. Wrap them up: The Thanksgiving night loss against Southern California featured the Sun Devils’ most feeble tackling of the season. The recognition and pursuit must be better against an Arizona offense with no shortage of weapons.

3. Earn the slop: There is a 60 percent chance of rain, meaning that this could be the first UA-ASU game played in a steady downpour since the 1981 contest in Tempe. That would put a premium on tough running, so Keegan Herring and Dimitri Nance must be on the ball.

INJURY REPORT

Arizona
OUT: OL Adam Grant (knee)

Arizona State
OUT: DB Chris Baloney (leg); DB Josh Barrett (knee); DL Saia Falahola (triceps); OL Zach Krula (knee); DL Tranell Morant (knee); QB Samson Szakacsy (elbow); RB Ryan Torain (foot) QUESTIONABLE: TE Andrew Pettes (ankle); OL Brandon Rodd (ankle); DB Travis Smith (foot) PROBABLE: QB Rudy Carpenter (thumb); WR Chris McGaha (chest); OL Richard Tuitu’u (ankle)

WHEN ASU HAS THE BALL

The yards and points have been more difficult to come by for the Sun Devils during the last two weeks. ASU misses the ability of star running back Ryan Torain (foot) to sustain marches – the third-down conversion success rate fell in November, and ASU has compiled just four drives of 50 yards or more in the last two games. Of Torain’s replacements, Keegan Herring has delivered a long run on occasion, and Dimitri Nance has been effective near the goal line, but more consistency is needed to make an opposing defense respect play action and keep it from teeing off on quarterback Rudy Carpenter.

Mike Thomas had six receptions for 125 yards and two touchdowns in Arizona’s victory against then-No. 2 Oregon on Nov. 15.

WHEN ARIZONA HAS THE BALL

The offense is classified as a spread, but the Wildcats utilize many more looks – such as two tight ends or the I-formation – than Oregon does. First-year offensive coordinator Sonny Dykes has developed a diverse package that has helped quarterback Willie Tuitama limit mistakes, and the result has been UA season records for completions, yards and touchdowns. The Wildcats throw a lot of quick passes to try an take advantage of an aggressive pass rush, and Mike Thomas, the Pac-10’s leading receiver, is a deep threat. Tailback Nic Grigsby offers balance, and Arizona is 3-1 when it has at least 100 team rushing yards.

THE INTRIGUE

What is on the line? For ASU, a possible Bowl Championship Series bid; for UA, a possible bowl bid. For ASU, a chance to climax a successful first regular season under coach Dennis Erickson; for UA, a chance to end the year with four straight wins and feel at least cautiously optimistic about the future under Mike Stoops. For ASU, an opportunity to extend its recent domination – six wins in eight years – of the series; for UA, an opportunity to, once again, deny the Sun Devils a big postseason reward. Other than that, not much.

TEAM REPORTS

ARIZONA OFFENSE
WR 11 Terrell Reese; LT 76 Peter Graniello; LG 64 Colin Baxter; C 50 Blake Kerley; RG 75 Joe Longacre; RT 77 Eben Britton; TE 48 Rob Gronkowski; WR 10 Mike Thomas; QB 7 Willie Tuitama; TB 23 Nic Grigsby; HB 49 Earl Mitchell

ARIZONA DEFENSE
DE 1 Louis Holmes; DT 96 Yaniv Barnett; DT 54 Lionel Dotson; DE 53 Jason Parker; SLB 39 Dane Krogstad; MLB 33 Ronnie Palmer; WLB 51 Spencer Larsen; CB 3 Wilrey Fontenot; CB 5 Antoine Cason; FS 32 Nate Ness; SS 20 Cam Nelson

Arizona 2007 schedule and results

Arizona season statistics (PDF)

ASU OFFENSE
SE 1 Michael Jones; LT 62 Brandon Rodd; LG 67 Shawn Lauvao; C 76 Mike Pollak; RG 63 Paul Fanaika; RT 79 Julius Orieukwu; TE 87 Brent Miller; SLOT 6 Kyle Williams; FL 13 Chris McGaha; QB 12 Rudy Carpenter; RB 24 Keegan Herring

ASU DEFENSE
LE 97 Luis Vasquez; DT 77 Michael Marquardt; DT 90 David Smith; RE 58 Dexter Davis; SLB 44 Travis Goethel; MLB 25 Mike Nixon; WLB 29 Robert James; CB 32 Omar Bolden; CB 4 Justin Tryon; FS 22 Rodney Cox; SS 14 Troy Nolan

ASU 2007 schedule and results

ASU 2007 statistics

Fresh off a pasting of Florida Gulf Coast, Arizona State next heads to Lincoln, Neb., where it will play Nebraska on Sunday. A real road game.

They’ll be greeted by a couple old friends: Doc Sadler and Tony Benford.

Veteran Sun Devil fans might remember Sadler as an assistant under Bill Frieder in the mid-1990s.

Sadler is Nebraska’s second-year coach, having led the Huskers to a 17-14 record in 2006-07, the third-best finish by a first-year coach in school history.

Sadler spent three years building Texas-El Paso into a Western Athletic Conference power before heading to Lincoln. He won 27 games in his first season at El Paso as the school went to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 15 years.

Sadler: Looks the same, doesn’t he?

And who should appear on his staff but former Sun Devils assistant Tony Benford.

Benford was an assistant under Rob Evans from 1999-2006 and was the team’s associate head coach for those final two years.

Benford coached Ike Diogu and Eddie House in Tempe, and recruited that Jeff Pendergraph guy.

Benford spent eight seasons at ASU.

I missed it at the time, but Sports Illustrated writer Seth Davis made note of both Pendergraph and Sunday’s opposing big man, Nebraska’s Aleks Maric, as among the country’s under-the-radar players to watch.

Maric, incidentally, is coming off a 30-point, nine-rebound game against Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne.

Sun Devil Stadium had a sellout crowd for Arizona State’s game against Southern California on Thanksgiving night. (Jennifer Grimes/Tribune)

All of the tickets for Arizona State’s rivalry contest against Arizona on Saturday have sold, giving Sun Devil Stadium its third capacity crowd in a row. The California game on Oct. 27 and Southern California contest on Nov. 22 were sellouts.

In my previous reporting on the last time ASU had three consecutive home football sellouts, I shortchanged the school a year.

Because of a my misunderstanding regarding Sun Devil Stadium’s 1988 seating expansion, I incorrectly wrote that the last time the Sun Devils sold out three in a row was 1987. It turns out that ASU achieved the feat last in ’88.

The expansion increased the stadium’s number of seats to its current 71,706, but the listed capacity for the ’88 football season was 70,491. That means that attendance for games that year against Washington (70,934), Oregon State (70,508) and USC (72,203) was above capacity.

The finalists for the Broyles Trophy, awarded to the nation’s top assistant coach, were announced on Wednesday, and ASU defensive coordinator Craig Bray did not make the cut. Bray had been nominated by coach Dennis Erickson.

Ohio State defensive coordinator Jim Heacock, Kansas defensive coordinator Bill Young, West Virginia offensive coordinator Calvin Magee, Missouri offensive coordinator Dave Christensen and Auburn defensive coordinator Will Muschamp are the Broyles Award finalists, with the winner announced at a Dec. 4 banquet in Little Rock, Ark.

ASU’s bowl destination will probably be revealed during its football awards banquet on Sunday at the Phoenician resort in Scottsdale. (The Sun Devils could know on Saturday, as they would go to the Rose Bowl if they beat Arizona and USC loses to UCLA.)

The banquet is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. That is also when Fox’s broadcast of the Bowl Championship Series selection show starts, as does ESPN’s program that unveils matchups for each of the 32 bowl games.

If USC wins on Saturday, a Fiesta Bowl berth is possible for ASU with a victory against Arizona. Erickson would have to depart the banquet temporarily to participate in a media conference call if his team gets a BCS invitation.

Two posts in one day. What a deal.

Some tidbits from ASU’s 30-point win against Cal Poly on Monday:

Sure, it’s Cal Poly, but considering what happened last year against Northern Arizona in the home opener, and it’s easy to see why, on this night, the game meant something to ASU, even if it’ll be long forgotten by next month.

Speaking of home opener, announced attendance: 6,151.

My head-on-a-swivel guesstimate: Nearly 5,000.

The 41 points allowed tied for the fifth-fewest surrendered since 1950.

Other signs that coach Herb Sendek is getting his point across: four players scored in double figures and 16 of the 23 field goals were assisted.

In one second-half possession, Eric Boateng had three offensive rebounds off his own point-blank misses, and he heard about it in the locker room afterward.

“Reminiscent of Moses Malone, he’d go up and make a couple then miss a couple, and his rebounding numbers would be terrific,” Sendek said. But Eric is so honest, he’s Honest Abe, he confided in us he wasn’t trying to do that.”

Boateng and Jeff Pendergraph shared the floor together for a few minutes of the second half. It’s the first time since the season-opener against Illinois the two were on the floor together. There were mixed results, although probably too few minutes to form any opinion.

Pendergraph was asked afterward about this work-in-progress.

“I don’t know man,” he said. “I can’t tell what Coach Sendek thinks. It’s hard to see inside his head. You can never tell what he’s thinking. One time he’ll be thinking something, the next time he’s popping out of nowhere and you’re like, ‘Who’s this guy? Where’s Herb?”

It left Pendergraph laughing and coughing at the same time.

Sendek’s retort: “We definitely have a team filled with personality. … “I have to have my hands up to because they know how to deliver a good rib shot themselves.”

Arizona State faces Cal Poly on Monday night in the Sun Devils’ home opener, but before tipoff, I wanted to pass along a couple of tidbits collected over the holiday weekend.

The Sun Devils are locked into quality preseason tournaments for the next three Novembers.

In 2008, they will travel to Anaheim to play in the second Anaheim Classic. Southern California won the inaugural championship this past weekend among a field which also featured NCAA Tournament teams Southern Illinois and ASU coach Herb Sendek’s old stomping ground, Miami (Ohio).

In 2009, ASU will play in the Preseason NIT, which likely means two home games and, if they fare well enough, a trip to New York City.

The Sun Devils could go to Gotham in 2009.

Get a coat and shovel in 2010. ASU will play in the Great Alaska Shootout, one of the premier preseason tournaments (as was the Maui Invitational they recently returned from).  

Accommodations in Alaska aren’t on par with the Waldorf-Astoria in Manhattan.

Also, here is a story on freshman forward Kraidon Woods’ decision to come across the country. Pocono is a small town in northeast Pennsylvania where Woods was a high school and prep academy standout at The Hill in nearby Pottstown.

The results of FSN Arizona’s online poll asking viewers to name the top moment in the Arizona-Arizona State rivalry are in. Here are the five finalists (in chronological order), as selected by 55,000 voters:

1982: Arizona’s win knocks ASU out of the Rose Bowl
1982-90: The Streak (UA goes 8-0-1 against ASU)
1986: Chuck Cecil’s 100-yard interception return
1996: ASU’s 56-14 rout in Tucson
2005: Terry Richardson’s punt return for a touchdown

The voting results will be unveiled during the network’s “Duel In The Desert” pregame show, airing at 5:30 p.m. on Friday.

A moment is missing, and its omission has the subtlety of a solar flare.

Evidently, the voting turned into an online war between fans of the each school trying to prevent the other from owning the No. 1 overall moment. As a result, the early leaders — Cecil’s interception for UA and the 1996 game for ASU — became the target of each fan base in the race to the top.

One school’s fans made the right choice on their top moment. Those from the other school were not even in the same time zone.

John Jefferson’s “The Catch” in 1975 is the most significant play in the UA-ASU rivalry, period. No other game had more on the line for both teams, and no other moment has has been a source of debate years — even decades — later.

The 1996 game was a boring blowout that had no Rose Bowl implications (ASU had already sewn up the invitation) and was marred by fourth-quarter fisticuffs. As I have written before, Terry Richardson’s punt return, while electrifying, was not the most important play he made in the 2005 contest.

Usually, I am hesitant to second-guess the desires of fans, some of who read my work. And, after all, this was their poll.

However, discussing the UA-ASU rivalry without Jefferson’s catch at the forefront is like talking about the history of the Fiesta Bowl with no mention of the 1987 Miami (Fla.)-Penn State game. Or discussing the New York Yankees with no mention of Babe Ruth. Or discussing Franklin Roosevelt with no mention of the New Deal.

You might as well not even bring the subject up.

“So, you’re saying there’s a chance?”

The Rose Bowl odds for Arizona State remain long after their loss against Southern California on Thursday, but the Sun Devils remain mathematically alive and got the Oregon loss that they needed on Saturday.

Projected for the national championship game before quarterback Dennis Dixon’s knee injury, the Ducks lost against UCLA and were eliminated from the Rose Bowl chase. And as a result, say hello to the newest, most unlikely contender for the Pac-10’s BCS berth, despite an overall record of 6-5:

ASU and USC are atop the Pac-10 with 6-2 conference records, but the Trojans, of course, own the tiebreaker. Oregon and UCLA are next at 5-3. The Rose Bowl chase goes into the final week of the regular season, and here is what needs to happen for each school:

USC: If the Trojans defeat UCLA at home on Dec. 1 — and they will be heavily favored — they clinch the Pasadena trip. It would be the sixth straight year that USC has won or shared the Pac-10 title.

ASU: The Sun Devils could earn a Bowl Championship Series berth with a win against the Wildcats, and they would go to the Rose Bowl if the Trojans stumble. If USC goes to Pasadena, ASU could land in the Fiesta Bowl by beating Arizona.

UCLA: Incredibly, a UCLA win at USC and and Arizona victory at ASU would create a four-way tie for first place in the final league standings, and under that scenario, the Bruins — who beat the Trojans last season and will have No. 1 quarterback Ben Olson (knee) back next week — would get the Rose Bowl invite.

UCLA’s BCS hopes are limited to the Rose Bowl, so the Pac-10 would likely get just one school in the top-tier bowls should the Trojans win and Sun Devils lose.

A Wildcats victory would send ASU to the Holiday Bowl in San Diego, unless Oregon wins against Oregon State. Should that happen, the Sun Devils could tumble to the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas.

Here is a Saturday-evening projection of the BCS bowl matchups: 

National championship: Missouri (Big 12 champion; BCS No. 2) vs. West Virginia (Big East champion; BCS No. 1)

Orange: Georgia (at-large) vs. Virginia Tech (ACC champion)

Fiesta: Arizona State (at-large) vs. Kansas (at-large)

Sugar: Hawaii (at-large) vs. Louisiana State (SEC champion)

Rose: Ohio State (Big Ten champion) vs. USC (Pac-10 champion)

Southern California at Arizona State

When: 6 p.m. Thursday
Where: Sun Devil Stadium
TV/Announcers: ESPN/Chris Fowler, Doug Flutie, Craig James and Erin Andrews
Radio: KTAR (620 AM)
Records: USC 8-2 overall, 5-2 Pac-10; ASU 9-1, 6-1
Rankings: USC No. 11 Associated Press/No. 12 USA Today (coaches)/No. 12 Harris Interactive/No. 11 Bowl Championship Series standings; ASU No. 7/No. 6/No. 6/No. 6
Series: USC leads 14-9 and has won the last seven meetings
Last meeting: Oct. 14, 2006, at Los Angeles – USC 28, ASU 21
Tickets: Sold out

SUN DEVILS’ KEYS TO VICTORY

1. Win in the trenches: USC’s front seven – even minus leading tackler Keith Rivers, who is limited with an ankle injury – is the most talented ASU has faced this year and the catalyst for a Trojans defense ranked third in the country. End Lawrence Jackson and tackle Sedrick Ellis are pass-rush monsters. If the Sun Devils’ offense does not control the scrimmage line, they will not win.

2. Robert re-emerges: While steady in the last three games – he still leads ASU with 83 tackles – linebacker Robert James has not been the big playmaker he was early in the season. The senior is due for another high-impact performance.

3. Shore up special teams: Two weeks ago, missed tackles and deficient lane assignments by the Sun Devils helped UCLA break long returns on a kickoff and punt. USC freshman Ronald Johnson, who is averaging 25 yards a kick return, is capable of bringing one back far.

INJURY REPORT

USC
OUT: RB C.J. Gable (abdominal); WR Travon Patterson (foot); S Josh Pinkard (knee) QUESTIONABLE: OL Thomas Herring (knee); OL Kristofer O’Dowd (knee); LB Keith Rivers (ankle); DE Kyle Moore (hand) PROBABLE: OL Sam Baker (hamstring)

Arizona State
OUT: DL Saia Falahola (triceps); OL Zach Krula (knee); DL Tranell Morant (knee); QB Samson Szakacsy (elbow); RB Ryan Torain (foot) QUESTIONABLE: CB Travis Smith (foot) PROBABLE: QB Rudy Carpenter (thumb); DL Dane Guthrie (concussion); DL Jon Hargis (shoulder); DL Michael Marquardt (ankle); S Jeremy Payton (ankle); TE Andrew Pettes (ankle); DL David Smith (foot)

WHEN ASU HAS THE BALL

Quarterback Rudy Carpenter will try to keep his ailing right thumb safe against another defense that could throw everything but the kitchen sink at him. However, the Trojans do not need to; they are one of the rare teams that can get consistent pressure with a four- or five-man rush. It makes for perhaps the biggest challenge of Carpenter’s college career, but a golden opportunity. Some Sun Devil fans wonder why Carpenter is not mentioned in the same breath with the nation’s other elite QBs. A big, gutsy game on a national stage such as this – and help from running backs Keegan Herring and Dimitri Nance – could help get Carpenter that recognition.

With nary a California defender in sight, Chauncey Washington rushes for a chunk of his 220 yards on Nov. 10.

WHEN USC HAS THE BALL

The Trojans’ offense is not as flashy and explosive as in years past, but the unit has gotten more efficient in recent weeks as injured players have returned. USC will try to win with the run first, and Chauncey Washington, with 220 yards two weeks ago at California, has the hot hand. However, the sledding figures to be more difficult against an ASU defense allowing just 103.4 rushing yards a game. If quarterback John David Booty’s role is stewarding the running game and avoiding mistakes, USC is tough to beat. If Booty can add in a few big-play passes – something he could not do much of in the rain against Cal – an opposing team’s task becomes even more demanding.
 
THE INTRIGUE

In 1978, ASU did not have a national stage when it made a statement victory against a USC squad that went on to win the national title. That will not be a problem on Thursday, with ESPN beaming the game to the entire country. It is a chance at widespread legitimacy for the Sun Devils, who with a win could be outright Pac-10 champions as soon as Saturday, as an Oregon loss against UCLA would end the conference race. A USC victory means the race for the Rose Bowl goes down to the final regular-season weekend. The Trojans are 22-0 in November under coach Pete Carroll, and a chance to show the football world that USC is still USC should be powerful motivation.

TEAM REPORTS

USC OFFENSE: SE 1 Patrick Turner; LT 79 Sam Baker; LG 53 Jeff Byers; C 69 Matt Spanos; RG 66 Chilo Rachal; RT 60 Drew Radovich; TE 83 Fred Davis; FL 7 Vidal Hazelton; QB 10 John David Booty; TB 23 Chauncey Washington; FB 31 Stanley Havili

USC DEFENSE: DE 96 Lawrence Jackson; NT 49 Sedrick Ellis; DT 75 Fili Moala; DE 93 Everson Griffen; SLB 10 Brian Cushing; MLB 58 Rey Maualuga; WLB 43 Kaluka Maiava; CB 7 Cary Harris; CB 28 Terrell Thomas; FS 2 Taylor Mays; SS 4 Kevin Ellison

USC 2007 schedule and results

USC season statistics

ASU OFFENSE: SE 1 Michael Jones; LT 62 Brandon Rodd; LG 67 Shawn Lauvao; C 76 Mike Pollak; RG 63 Paul Fanaika; RT 79 Julius Orieukwu; TE 87 Brent Miller; SLOT 3 Rudy Burgess; FL 13 Chris McGaha; QB 12 Rudy Carpenter; RB 24 Keegan Herring

ASU DEFENSE: LE 97 Luis Vasquez; DT 77 Michael Marquardt; DT 90 David Smith; RE 58 Dexter Davis; SLB 44 Travis Goethel; MLB 52 Morris Wooten; WLB 29 Robert James; CB 32 Omar Bolden; CB 4 Justin Tryon; FS 19 Josh Barrett; SS 14 Troy Nolan

ASU 2007 schedule and results

ASU season statistics

For years, Rudy Carpenter has watched football on Thanksgiving Day. This year, the Arizona State quarterback will be busy, as the Sun Devils host Southern California at 6 p.m. Thursday in a nationally-televised game with Bowl Championship Series implications.

“I saw all of those games on TV and kind of hoped and wished to have a chance to play in a game like that,” Carpenter said. “Fortunately for us, we’re going to have a chance to be the national game on TV that day and play in front of the entire United States. It’s going to be fun.”

The USC game is ASU’s first on Thanksgiving.

Much of football’s Turkey Day history is rooted in the NFL. Clint Longley, for example, will forever be instantly associated with Thanksgiving 1974, when the brief-career quarterback replaced an injured Roger Staubach and rallied the Dallas Cowboys to a dramatic win against the Washington Redskins.

College football has just two classic contests tied to Thanksgiving. But oh, what significant games they are:

Johnny Rodgers

On Thanksgiving Day 1971, Nebraska defeated Oklahoma, 35-31, in a showdown of unbeatens promoted as the “Game of the Century.” Cornhuskers running back Jeff Kinney scored four touchdowns, but the most famous score in the game is, far and away, wingback Johnny Rodgers’ electrifying 72-yard punt return in the first quarter.

I was 10 months old when this game was played but have seen the ESPN Classic rebroadcast several times. The game deserved its billing, with two great teams going back and forth with TDs, as if raising the bar for one another.

It was the de facto 1971 national championship game, as both schools drilled their bowl-game opponents, Nebraska beating Alabama 38-6 in the Orange Bowl to finish No. 1. The next year, Rodgers won the Heisman Trophy.

Doug Flutie

On Nov. 23, 1984 — the day after Thanksgiving — quarterback Doug Flutie rolled right on the last play of the game and heaved the ball deep into the night, where it eluded three Miami (Fla.) defenders and settled into the arms of receiver Gerard Phelan, giving Boston College an improbable 47-45 victory.

The win sealed the Heisman Trophy for Flutie, who will attend Thursday’s USC-ASU game as an analyst for ESPN. He will be one of at least three Heisman winners in the Sun Devil Stadium press box.

Gino Torretta, who won in 1992 as quarterback of a Dennis Erickson-coached Miami (Fla.) squad, will provide color commentary on the national radio broadcast. Mike Garrett, who won in 1965 as running back at USC, is now the school’s athletic director.

Will they be on hand for another Thanksgiving college football classic? The answer will be known at about 10 p.m. on Thursday.

ASU quarterback Mark Malone takes off toward the sideline during the Sun Devils’ upset of Southern California in 1978.

I had a lot of fun putting together the feature on Arizona State’s 1978 victory against Southern California that appeared in Monday’s Tribune, especially when comparing it to the 1996 upset of Nebraska that is generally considered the biggest regular-season win in school history.

Is the Nebraska game more significant? Absolutely. The Cornhuskers were the two-time defending national champions — the 1995 squad might be the best college team ever — and brought a 26-game winning streak to Tempe. The 19-0 ASU victory propelled it to a 11-0 regular season and the brink of a national championship.

But what ASU achieved in 1978 against a USC squad that went on to win the national title deserves more love.

In the two years before and after they suffered memorable losses at ASU, Nebraska won three national titles (1994, ’95 and ’97), USC one. That is the most important yardstick, but in others, the ’78 Trojans hold their own against those dominant Cornhuskers.

The ’78 USC squad featured 37 future NFL players, the ’96 Nebraska team had 30.

“They had guys who were second-teamers that got drafted,” said John Mistler, a Sun Devils receiver who caught a touchdown pass against USC in ’78. “They had the largest line in the world, larger than a lot of NFL lines. They had (future Heisman Trophy winner) Charles White at running back. But we took away their stars.”

The Trojans went 26-0-2 in their next 28 games, not losing again until Nov. 15, 1980, against Washington. The Cornhuskers went 19-1 in their next 20 games, with the loss in the ’96 Big 12 championship game against Texas.

A handful of longtime Sun Devil football followers — including a certain Tribune columnist who was then an ASU student and celebrated the win by parading through downtown Tempe with a traffic cone on his head — have told me that the crowd of 71,738 is perhaps the loudest they have ever heard.

“The crowd was electric,” said Bryan Caldwell, then a freshman backup defensive end. “It was like an Oregon crowd (at Autzen Stadium), only larger. It was an epic evening. For anyone that was there, it was a special night that put ASU on the map, as far as the national scene is concerned.”