Boivin: Arizona State looks helpless as dream season unravels
CORVALLIS, Ore. -- As he watched his team's College Football Playoff hopes slip away, Jaelen Strong couldn't stand it anymore.
Banished to the sidelines after taking several hard hits, he demanded his helmet back from the Arizona State training staff with just minutes remaining against Oregon State. They wouldn't oblige, so he turned to running back Demario Richard for his.
ASU wouldn't allow that either, so the wide receiver watched helplessly as his team fell 35-27 to a Beavers team that had been firmly entrenched in the bottom of conference.
"It just felt like they wanted it more than we did," safety Damarious Randall said.
It looked that way, too.
What a bizarre and unexpected performance. It was Saturday in Corvallis, Sunday in Tempe when it finally ended. Much of the country was already deep in its REM sleep cycle.
It was odd because one of Coach Todd Graham's strengths has been to have his players focused for the task in front of them. The UCLA loss was a different story. That was a young defense still finding its footing.
This? This looked like a superior team with an inferior mental attitude.
It is a team that no longer controls its destiny in the Pac-12 South Division.
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"We weren't prepared to play," Graham said. "I did a poor job preparing them to play. … Like I say all the time, it's very fragile, it's very difficult in college football to bring it every week."
Like Strong, Graham was frustrated, too. He was more animated than usual on the sidelines Saturday at Reser Stadium, enough so that social media was abuzz with fans who didn't like the words they could read from the coach's lips.
He watched helplessly as the Beavers made a mockery of ASU's defensive game plan, with touchdown runs of 78 and 66 yards in the first quarter and a 67-yard scoring pass in the fourth.
Oregon State was expecting ASU to blitz. It capitalized on it.
"Sometimes when you blitz it can be feast or famine," Beavers coach Mike Riley said. "ASU has been very successful blitzing, but the more people you blitz if you get past that first line, you've got a chance for a big play throwing or running."
It was frustrating for Sun Devils quarterback Taylor Kelly, too, who missed on some key passes and couldn't play hero in the final minutes.
His last five snaps in the game went this way:
- Interception that was returned 35 yards for a touchdown.
- Incompletion.
- Sack.
- Completion.
- Sack.
Game over.
"They have some great athletes and they made plays when we didn't," Kelly said. "I had a few missed passes, and we just need to keep getting better."
Kelly didn't look like himself Saturday.
What ASU does with this heartbreak will tell us a lot about this team.
An 8-2 record shouldn't feel this bad and the reality that it can still end the regular season 10-2 is impressive.
It must hope for help from the Bruins, who are in the driver's seat with victories over ASU and Arizona.
And it must figure out what went wrong against the Beavers and try to prevent it from happening again.
"I don't want to sit up and be a coach that says, 'Oh, we beat ourselves,' " Graham said. "No, coach Riley and OSU did a great job. They deserve the credit."
The nationally televised game will mean more scrutiny of the program.
ASU's recent ascent up the College Football Playoff poll has prompted a national dissection of the program's arteries, and a need to more deeply understand a man who has had as much of a divisive impact on the Phoenix and Pittsburgh areas as Super Bowl XLIII.
The recent victory over the Fighting Irish meant rehashed storylines about Graham's loyalties.
It is this simple:
Graham is ambitious. Graham made a poor, sloppy exit from Pittsburgh. Graham has turned around ASU's football program. Graham is a really good coach (yes, even after Saturday's loss).
He is not the anti-Christ, despite a New York Post column accusing him of trivializing religion after the Notre Dame Game by thanking "my lord and savior, Jesus Christ" and for suggesting "He had His hands on us."
This too shall pass. Most likely into the hands of wide receiver Strong.
Graham is simply caught up in a tempest, better known as a 2014 version of a news cycle.
Many layers of media exist and they are coming at this story from a variety of directions. Now that an ASU football program has their attention, especially after a victory over the Fighting Irish, coverage is focusing on the coach's path and the provocative storyline of a quick departure from Pittsburgh.
It prompted Rolling Stone to wonder on Twitter if Graham is "the most hated coach in America."
It inspired a long-time Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist to acknowledge that Graham made the right choice by leaving for Tempe but finished his story by warning ASU fans not to get used to success.
"Graham won't turn 50 until Dec. 5," Ron Cook wrote. "He'll probably have five more jobs before he retires."
The Oregonian called Graham "the biggest, brightest, baddest coach in the Pac-12, and a Bleacher Report headline proclaimed Graham "The Smartest Bad Hire in College Football History."
Depending on the day, Graham is either a heathen, a genius, a traitor or a football savant.
It is easy to understand the hurt feelings by Pittsburgh fans. You can be bowled over by the job Graham has done in Tempe and still believe he could have handled it better at Pitt, despite the suggestions by spin doctors otherwise.
He made a mistake.
But shouldn't we measure a person by his body of work, and not a singular decision?
Graham's body of work here has been impressive.
He had the Sun Devils in the national title conversation.
He re-energized a fan base and worked tirelessly to engage boosters.
He brought quality athletes into the program and put them in a position to succeed on and off the field.
He has been transparent and accessible and yes, probably a giant pain in the backside to some of those who work for him. Name me a good football coach who Graham gets it. Media scrutiny is a sign of the times.
But after this season takes is over, the storyline should also have a nice respectful burial.
For perspective, Graham has been on the job as long as 71 of the 128 coaches in Division I, better known as the Football Bowl Subdivision. That's more than half.
In the Pac-12, only Mike Riley (hired by Oregon State in 2003), Kyle Whittingham (Utah in 2004) and David Shaw (Stanford in 2011) have been at their school longer.
Frank Beamer (Virginia Tech since 1987), Bob Stoops (Oklahoma since 1999) and Kirk Ferentz (Iowa since 1999)? Those guys are rarities.
Money and expectations have been a game-changer in college football. Coaches are fired. Coaches move on to greener pastures.
And they sometimes lose games they should win.
The best eventually figure out why.
Reach Boivin at paola.boivin@arizonarepublic.com and follow her on Twitter at Twitter.com/Paola Boivin. Listen to her streaming live on "The Brad Cesmat Show" on sports360az.com every Monday at 10:30 a.m.