It’s no secret that the Arizona State Sun Devils have fallen off a cliff over the past month.

They went from a 5-1 start that got the team to the nation’s number 17 ranking, its highest in-season since 2014, but have since lost four consecutive games, most recently a 35-34 heartbreaker at Oregon State, to extend the team’s longest losing streak since 2016.

In a way, you could say this year’s team set new highs and lows for the program all in one season. But the Sun Devils know with the No. 6 Oregon Ducks coming to town on Saturday that they have a chance to reach a new high, one that many key players on the team have yet to experience at this level.

Senior center and captain Cohl Cabral compared this upcoming opportunity to when then No. 5 Washington came to Tempe back on October 14, 2017, only to be handed its first loss, 13-7, by a Sun Devil team battling to get back to .500

“It almost brings back a taste of ’17 with Washington,” Cabral said. “There’s no better feeling than watching everybody run out on the field after a game like that. The feeling you have, the momentum you carry and it kind of brings the morale back up of the whole team.

“There’s a slim amount of us still left from that year, but yeah, there’s still a good group here from that year, and the fact that we still have that taste that we know what it is, what that feeling feels like, and want to feel it again. There’s nothing like knocking off a top-10 team.”

To pull this off and earn another crowd-storming arguably turned music festival experience, just about everything will have to go right for the Sun Devils, something not lost on any of the veterans of the group.

“In order for us to win, we’re going to have to be on our p’s and q’s early in the game,” senior tackle Steve Miller said. “We’re going to have to start fast and we’re going to have to continue to play fast the entire game. We should be able to do that this week, but in order for us to do that we have to have an all-in mentality from everyone, and that includes from the very bottom of the roster to the very tippy top.

“It’s a challenge, and we’ve had some challenges recently and we haven’t really stepped up to them, so this will be really the best opportunity that we’re going to have for the rest of the year to really show that we can play, and show what type of team we are.”

Throughout this losing streak, arguably the greatest challenge for this offense has been keeping the ball off the ground and out of the defense’s hands. The Sun Devils have now played their last eight games against power-five schools, and the first four compared to the last four of that slate have been night and day in terms of ball security and turnovers.

In the past four games combined, ASU has fumbled the ball eight times, lost five of those fumbles, and thrown three interceptions. When looking at the four games prior to that Utah contest, during which the Sun Devils went 3-1, they only fumbled twice, lost one and threw one interception.

With hindsight, the first four games of that stretch were certainly not as tough as the four games that followed, especially considering three of those last four were on the road. But that’s still no excuse for the spike in the number of self-inflicted errors, and Miller says it’s something for which guys have been trying to hold each other accountable.

“We talk about ball security, it’s something that we preach,” Miller stated. “(Offensive coordinator Rob) Likens always says, ‘man, I don’t care who it is on the team. If you see somebody with bad ball security, call them out and let them know.’ It’s a group effort, always.

“I just think there’s been some lapses in focus, and that’s not one specific person, it’s a group of people, and it shows in the record that we have in the last few games. But we’re just trying to keep harping on it and try to get it right, that’s all we can do.”

Upon closer examination of those aforementioned numbers, there’s something to be said for the difference between home and road games. In the three home games during the past eight contests, the Sun Devils have fumbled twice, lost one and thrown three interceptions.

Of course, much of that came in the most recent contest at Sun Devil Stadium, when freshman quarterback Joey Yellen threw two picks (both great plays by the USC defenders) and junior running back Eno Benjamin coughed up a fumble again- a streak that has now reached three straight games.

Just looking at the previous three road games for fairness of comparison, also since those are the ones ASU lost, the team has fumbled seven times, lost four of them and thrown an interception.

While there’s certainly a case to be made for the uniqueness of the Utah contest (three fumbles, one lost, one interception) when the game was played through a torrential downpour that turned into snow postgame, the performance at UCLA (one fumble, lost) and specifically the turnovers at Oregon State (three fumbles, two lost) were beyond excusable considering the level of opponent.

However, the Sun Devils get to finish the season’s final two games at home, which in the opinion of junior receiver Frank Darby could make all the difference.

“I feel like we play really good in front of our fans,” Darby commented. “We could just mess up (Oregon’s) dreams completely,” he added, laughing at the end of that sentence.

For Darby, in particular, he’s especially looking forward to his matchup given that he was robbed by Pac-12 officials of the tying catch on a two-point conversion at Oregon last season with 4:35 to go in regulation, a game ASU would lose 31-29 that would cost the team a shot at the Pac-12 championship game.

“I’ve been looking forward to this game all season,” Darby said. “The way I even trained the whole season was preparing for them. I feel like last year left me with a chip on my shoulder.

“Come down here to Tempe, that’s all I just want to say, just come to Tempe. I just feel like these four games that we lost is just like, we’re going to figure it out, we’re due for a win.”

The junior deep-threat isn’t the only one who will be playing with something to prove, as Cabral detailed how the offensive line has taken an angrier approach than usual ahead of this game, given the losing streak.

“I’d say everyone’s kind of got a pissed off attitude,” Cabral said. “You go and look at the o-line room and everyone’s kind of got that ‘no one wants to talk to anybody’ kind of attitude right now, just because we’re tired of losing. That group’s been through a whole lot, and we want things to end on the right note.

“If (the young guys) don’t figure it out (that the older guys want to finish strong), they’re going to feel it in practice at some point, I mean one of the older guys will end up popping him. That’s just the nature of this game, you don’t usually always have to say something out loud, you can use your pads and your actions to speak for you, and it will kind of get the message through, and usually that tends to be the quicker way to do it…we’re not going to let each other fall.”

The only way the Sun Devils will get their best shot at letting their play on the field send a message to the Ducks is by limiting, if not completely eradicating offensive turnovers. Not coincidentally, the last time ASU did not commit a turnover was the last game it won, the 38-34 victory over Washington State on October 12.

Playing a nationally elite opponent, and defense at that, only makes playing clean offensive football all the more important.

Join us on our premium message board, the Devils’ Huddle, to discuss this article and other ASU football and recruiting topics. Not a member yet? Sign up today here and join your fellow Sun Devil fans!