Confidence continues to grow entering key stretch for ASU

Arizona State was fresh off of a program-defining win over No. 5 Washington, with confidence at a season-high. The questions, of course, arose of a “fluke,” or of the potential for the Sun Devils to be riding too high entering their trip to Utah.

One week later, no such problem.

With a 30-10 victory in Salt Lake City, ASU not only silenced the remaining naysayers but also picked up outstanding momentum heading into its final five games.

Five games that, suddenly, mean eons more than they did a few weeks ago, with once blurred visions of a trip to the Pac-12 championship game recently clearing up.

“The whole thing is that I think we’re focused,” head coach Todd Graham said. “You’ve got to be focused on getting better and I feel like we’re doing that. You’ve just got to not have distractions, just continue to focus and have a passion every day to continue to get better fundamentally, and have a short memory.”

With that said, the goal all along has been to punch a ticket to Levi’s Stadium.

In Graham’s eyes — while the recent wins have been impressive — nothing his team has done to this point is going to be enough.

“We’ve just got to keep our head down and understand how difficult is in this league to be successful,” he said. “I’m proud of where we’re at, but we haven’t accomplished anything. We’ve just got to go and get another win.”

In order to accomplish such a lofty aspiration in a convoluted, wide-open Pac-12 South, that attitude needs to continue to carry over into each week, especially with four of the Sun Devils’ remaining games being against South division foes.

“We’re 3-1,” he said. “Once you’ve lost one, you can’t lose anymore. The key is getting better every week and figuring out how to win the next game. Our goal is to be Pac-12 champions, and to do that you’ve got to get better every week, and I think we’ve done that.”

But that being said, it’s always good to see the hard work start coming to fruition in the form of impressive conference victories.

“It’s been a lot of fun,” he said. “There’s nothing like teaching and seeing kids get it. Our players deserve all the credit because they’re the ones that have the investment, and I do think the fact that we’ve been here, and we haven’t compromised our values, and we have a culture is the reason why it’s producing discipline, it’s why we’re getting better.”

And with the recent success, the confidence continues to grow “behind the scenes” for an improving ASU team.

“There’s a lot of confidence building with our guys because we’ve just kept our head down, kept plugging, kept getting better,” he said. “Whether it be coaches, players, whatever, we’ve got a football team, and I think we’re confident in that.”

As far as the front-loaded nature of the Sun Devils’ 2017 schedule is concerned — with San Diego State, Oregon, Stanford, and Washington in the first six weeks of the season — Graham compared it to the one his battle-tested 2013 team played.

That team went 10-2 and reached a conference title game, having played the likes of Wisconsin, Notre Dame, USC and a ranked Washington team all in the campaign’s first seven weeks.

“We played a tough schedule (in 2013),” Graham said. “We think we’ve played a hard schedule (this year), we’ve kind of been through it, we’ve been through the hard times. I think it builds character, it builds toughness. You get to a point where you realize what it takes sacrifice-wise to get there and these guys have done it.”

While the Sun Devils defeated Utah this past weekend without his services, redshirt senior linebacker A.J. Latu will return to the defensive line after hurting his right foot against Washington.

“Expect A.J. to play,” Graham said Monday. “He wasn’t able to practice last week and I think we made a smart decision not trying to get him to play, so I expect him to be back.”

In his absence, though, several defensive players stepped up in their second-straight dominant performance against a talented offense. The Sun Devils allowed just 265 yards against Utah, 20 fewer than they did against the Huskies.

In particular, Graham said he’s been impressed by senior linebacker J’Marcus Rhodes who intercepted Utah quarterback Tyler Huntley in Saturday’s win.

“I think J’Marcus is having a great year,” he said. “He’s another guy who just has gotten better every day, and continues to get better in how he presents, he’s our strong safety, with his stems, his disguises, just being a smart player, a complete player, he’s really growing and he’s only scratched the surface on how good he can be.”

ASU’s next game, against No. 21 USC, is set to kick off at 7:45 p.m., Saturday at Sun Devil Stadium.