You’ve seen this all before.

Over the last few weeks, as Arizona State notched a pair of impressive victories, the tone surrounding the program — especially on the defensive side of the ball — rose to a season high.

A struggling front seven? Forgotten.

An inexperienced secondary? Erased.

Mistakes? Penalties? Missed tackles? All things of the past.

And they’ve all come back to haunt the Sun Devils, spelling a 48-17 loss to No. 21 USC, Saturday night in Tempe. On the night, ASU allowed 607 total yards, 341 of which came on the ground.

“Kudos to USC, they played very well,” defensive coordinator Phil Bennett said. “They were well-coached, they were disciplined. Without question, I know we were better than what we played tonight.”

“We faced a really good team,” senior linebacker D.J. Calhoun added. “We were probably too high over our heads.”

The “old” ASU defense was on display from the game’s opening possession, as the Trojans marched down the field to a tune of a nine-play, 75-yard drive, capped off by a 32-yard touchdown pass from redshirt sophomore Sam Darnold to junior Deontay Burnett.

Not exactly the kind of tone-setting opening drive the Sun Devils pulled off two weeks back against Washington.

“Those players came here ready to play, and they put it right on our butt,” Bennett said. “And we didn’t respond. It’s a temporary setback for us.”

At that point, though, it was just a sluggish start. Plenty of time to turn things around, not to mention a Brandon Ruiz field goal to put ASU on the board.

That didn’t last long.

Trailing by just four in the waning minutes of the first period, the Sun Devils had a chance to regain momentum and salvage a discouraging first ten minutes, having backed USC into a 3rd and 12 at its own 23.

All it took to put the Trojans on the fast track to a dominant first half were two 15-yard penalties on senior defensive lineman Tashon Smallwood and a blown tackle by sophomore cornerback Kobe Williams.

Smallwood’s first penalty, a personal foul, came as a result of a mental lapse, where the senior ran into Darnold after the whistle had been blown for a USC timeout.

“That penalty that we got on us, it was third down and 11 or 12,” Graham said. “The whistle was blown, we have to be smarter than that. He didn’t hear the whistle is what he said, but you’ve just got to see the quarterback standing there not moving and have some awareness there.”

Williams’ missed tackle allowed USC redshirt freshman receiver Tyler Vaughns — who amassed 126 yards on six catches — to scamper down the sideline and hand the Trojans a 14-3 lead.

That cluster of plays epitomized a major issue for ASU on third down and long; the Trojans were 7-for-15 on third, with three conversions on third and ten or more.

“We’ve got to get off the field,” Graham said. “They throw a five-yard out cut for a touchdown because we missed a tackle, we haven’t done that. But a lot of that, too, you have to give them credit, because they have really good skill players and they were very physical on the outside.”

To start the second quarter, following an ASU three-and-out, flashbacks of Bryce Love and Rashaad Penny hit the Sun Devils, as USC junior running back Ronald Jones II streaked down the sideline for 67 yards, effectively breaking the game open.

Jones had himself a night as well, making his mark by matching yard-for-yard the night Penny had in Tempe back on Sept. 10.

The Texas native torched the ASU defense in the form 216 yards on 18 carries, to compliment his two trips to the end zone.

“We just gave up big plays, everything was big plays,” Graham said. “That’s something we hadn’t done, so you have to give them credit. They’ve got a lot of big play capabilities. That running back is really, really good, and a lot of the times he broke, we were right there, we had guys right there and we just didn’t tackle him.”

On another Vaughns touchdown with 6:02 left in the second frame — this time from 19 yards out to increase the USC lead to 28-3 — arguably the most impactful penalty of the night for the Sun Devils resulted in the ejection of redshirt junior safety Das Tautalatasi.

The yellow laundry plagued ASU throughout, with 10 penalties accounting for 99 yards, which Graham referred to as “uncharacteristic” of his team.

“That’s something we shouldn’t have done,” Calhoun said. “We’re better than that. Coach Graham told us that when they came out they were going to be talking and everything. Some of us bought into that. It shows a lack of our character.”

While Tautalatasi’s night may have ended in a disqualification, the secondary as a whole reverted back to the kind of play that gave up 398 yards through the air to New Mexico State, 543 to Texas Tech and 281 to Oregon.

Darnold, a bona fide Heisman candidate, completed 19 of his 35 passes for 266 yards and three touchdowns.

Despite dismal first two quarters, the Sun Devils finally had some sliver of hope early in the second half, having followed a miracle, half-ending hail mary with a quick scoring drive out of the break.

But with a 67-yard touchdown run, Jones took whatever air had been pumped back into Sun Devil Stadium.

“I thought at halftime when we got the hail mary there and we were only down three, and we come back and score… I think I said, ‘Well, we’ll be right back in this thing,’” Graham said. “But we never could slow them down.”

For Rashaad Penny, that deflating play was a 33-yard catch on third and long. For Bryce Love, it came from 59 yards out. There were plenty of missed tackles and mental lapses on those plays and in those losses — just like in Saturday’s loss to USC — long before a new, welcomed side of the ASU defense appeared in mid-October.

But for the time being, those early-season problems are back.

Déjà vu.