[rwperu34]

For those of you who didn't watch, the ASU/Cal game was not as close as the score. From the begining, it was obvious Cal was faster and ASU was bigger and stronger. The Devils completely wore them down and by the end ASU was bigger, stronger, AND faster. A couple of other things to keep in mind, ASU got shafted at the end of the first half on the fumbled punt where the both official made up a new rule on the spot to give Cal the ball back. ASU was also marching at the end of the game and there is no way Cal would have stopped them. They were completely out of gas. I always like it when you get the ball with six minutes left and kill the clock! The final score could have easily been 45-13 if they call the face mask on Cal's first TD (help me out here, it looked obvious in the stadium, but I get conflicting reports from friends who watched on TV).

The player of the game was not Dimitri Nance, no matter what the announcers and ESPN tell you. The player of the game was without question Justin Tryon. He was one on one with DeSean Jackson all night and held him in check. Jackson caught five balls for 88 yards, but 40 of those were on a violent push off (no call, of course). Tryon also had a pick. I wouldn't have thought of Tryon as a pro prospect, but last night changed my mind.

The other important thing that came out of this game is, ASU once again looked like a championship caliber team. The basice forumla is, spot team a big lead. Wake up. Dominate. Win big. Rinse. Repeat. This is a big, strong, physical team. Quite the opposite of the Koetter era. ASU at Oregon next week could end up being the game of the year in college football.

Aslo, kudos the the Sun Devil fans last night. That is the loudest I've heard that stadium in the 25 years I've been attending those games. I was young in the begining, so that might not be completely accurate, but there was more electricity in the stadium than any time during the 1996 run, including the Nebraska game. I've also never seen so few of the opponents fan for a sold out game.

A friend of mine e-mailed after watching ASU for the first time on TV last night and said they had "very little chance" against Oregon but should handle UCLA and Nogales Tech. I said Oregon would be favored by 6 (am I crazy?) which equates to ASU having a 30-35% chance to win. He came back with, "U r a homer." You can imagine my response [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]