Throughout the week, ASU coach Todd Graham had a message for his players, his defenders in particular: to block out the outside noise and focus internally on reaching their goals.

It didn’t matter what everyone else was saying. It only mattered what they believed.

“I challenged to our guys defensively,” Graham said. “It doesn’t matter what everybody says…it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter how many yards you give up, so like tonight we gave up what? 400 yards passing? I’ll take it.

“We got back to sacking quarterbacks and (tackles for loss) and getting after people…You want to win championships, you want to win the Pac-12 South, we got to play championship defense and they rose to the occasion.”

In the Sun Devils’ 23-20 win over UCLA Saturday night, the defense did allow 400 passing yards, 444 to be precise, but, as Graham mentioned, the defense stepped up in other ways.

Despite the 444 yards allowed through the air, ASU didn’t let the Bruins rush for a single yard on the night. In fact, the Bruins only ran backward, totaling -1 rushing yard in 60 minutes of football.

“They absolutely could not run the ball,” Graham said. “That had a lot to do with those front four guys annihilating the line of scrimmage.”

The Sun Devils’ defense also forced four UCLA turnovers (three interceptions and one fumble recovery) leading to nine points, including when freshman cornerback Robbie Robinson intercepted UCLA senior quarterback Mike Fafaul’s final pass to seal ASU’s win as time expired.

And it was the defense that had arguably the most important series of the night.

After UCLA sophomore running back Soso Jamabo caught a pass from sophomore quarterback Josh Rosen and ran 66 yards to inside the ASU five-yard line, the Sun Devils stonewalled the Bruins on three straight plays forcing UCLA to settle for a field goal.

“It was huge, four-point swing,” Graham said of the stand. “If they’d scored that’d be four more points and that would have been the difference in the game.”

What makes the performance even more impressive are the tweaks Graham and defensive coordinator Keith Patterson had to make both during the week leading up to the game and in it.

Junior defensive tackle Tashon Smallwood, who normally plays on the inside of the defensive line, was forced to play on the edge against the Bruins. Although Smallwood may not be a natural fit on the edge, Graham believed in his capabilities.

“Tashon’s not a defensive end, he’s a three-technique (defensive tackle),” Graham said. “But I said ‘hey I think you’re athletic enough to do this and I think it will make us better,’ I think it was big.”

The tweaks, though, weren’t just on the defensive line. In fact, they were more pronounced in the secondary.

When sophomore cornerback Kareem Orr left the game in the second quarter, the Sun Devils had to overhaul their game plan on the back end, moving players around and asking fresher faces to perform.

“We lost one of our best defensive players (Orr) in an area we don’t need to lose one,” Graham said. “We were matching up Orr on their best receiver so when you practice that way and now he’s gone, now you’ve got to figure out…man, let me tell you, that was a challenge.

“I’m proud of Bryson Echols, I’m proud of (Maurice Chandler). I don’t like pointing out people but those people stepped up and Marcus Ball stepped up big time.”

But more than any one player, or position group, Graham saw something change in the defense as a whole.

Despite being tied 3-3 at halftime, heads were cool. There was no panic, no fear, no worry.

“Tonight, it really smoothed out tonight,” Graham said. “There wasn’t a lot of chaos.”

Instead, Graham’s Sun Devils took their coach’s message to heart. After the drubbing they took the week prior at USC, they wanted redemption.

“I think that they were pretty upset about the way we played last week,” Graham said. “I could sense this week and I could sense this game they were ready and I challenged them.

“In the season the key is getting better every week. It doesn’t matter what they’re saying about you in week one, it doesn’t matter what they’re saying about you in week four, you just want them to talk about you in week 13…we got better tonight as a football team. We got some injuries and some challenges we’re 5-1 and I think we’ve got a heck of a football team.”

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