Chase Lucas was sitting in Arizona State’s team meeting room, still letting it sink in, with a tinge of frustration in the back of his head.

The sophomore cornerback would have to move on pretty soon. The Sun Devils were mere days away from learning their postseason fate — the opponent, the bowl game, the destination, all of it.

But, at that moment, Lucas wasn’t alone in his anger.

Herm Edwards walked into the room to join his players and echoed the sentiments that undoubtedly had been brooding in their minds after watching the lowest-scoring conference championship game in FBS history result in the Washington Huskies taking home the Pac-12 crown.

“(Edwards) was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’” Lucas said. “‘This is the most boring game I’ve ever seen in my life.’”

Washington’s Pac-12 Championship Game victory over Utah was exactly as Edwards had described it. It featured four turnovers and 13 combined points, with the lone touchdown being scored on a 66-yard interception return by Washington cornerback Byron Murphy.

Social media had a field day. The entire college football universe took to Twitter at the expense of a conference whose rather unimpressive season ended in an ugly, unentertaining and poorly-attended title game.

Lucas wasn’t pleased with what he’d watched. He shot a text to Murphy, his childhood friend, after the game.

“I texted him,” Lucas said, with a laugh, referencing Murphy’s pick-six. “I was like, ‘Yo, you lucky, bro.’”

Lucas knew. Edwards knew. They all knew.

In their eyes, that totally should have been them playing in Santa Clara for a trip to the Rose Bowl.

“He was like, ‘We could’ve beaten any of those teams,’” Lucas said. “And I don’t think there was anybody in that meeting room that didn’t believe it. So, that’s the saddest part. We all believed that we could’ve beat them.”

The crazy part? They weren’t necessarily wrong. And that’s what makes 2019 so intriguing.

~~~

It keeps him awake at night.

Eno Benjamin admits it; he often watches highlights of some of the most heartbreaking games from ASU’s rollercoaster of a 2018 season.

“I literally go and watch film right before I go to bed,” he said. “And I fall asleep upset.”

More often than not, it’s the Stanford game.

That pesky Stanford game. That’s when the Sun Devils hit their rock bottom. With the ball in his own hands on a crunch-time crossing route, Eno Benjamin was brought down a few steps from the sideline — what would have been his and ASU’s lifeline — in the red zone, as the final seven seconds ticked away on a 20-13 loss.

“That’s really the one that irks me,” he said. “For us to go and score only 13 points, I think we had a few fumbles, and just the way it ended, we ran out of time, it was just bad overall. I think that’s just one of the games we really wish we could have back.”

By the end of that game, a 2-0 start and a national ranking had turned into four losses in five weeks, each by just seven points. For the latter part of September and pretty much all of October, it became such a commonplace phrase, those “seven-point losses,” as they piled up. It became uncanny, almost humorous, in a way.

And there was always a different reason — a different form of late-game frustration whether it was a seven-minute game-icing drive by Colorado, or a targeting review on San Diego State that resulted in an overturned Frank Darby catch.

Stanford was the last one. It was the last straw.

“Most of the games we lost felt like games we should have won,” rising sophomore linebacker Darien Butler said. “I felt like, Stanford game, we should have won that game. Things just didn’t go our way.”

From that point on, the narrative began to change. It started with a bye week, and then a trip to Los Angeles that yielded ASU’s first road victory of the season, 38-35 at USC. That momentum carried over into an 18-point home win over then-No. 15 Utah, arguably the Sun Devils’ most complete game of the season.

And after a Senior Day win over UCLA, with tiebreakers over the Trojans and Utes under its belt, ASU’s first-half woes seemed like a distant memory.

Despite weeks on weeks of coming up just a little bit short, things were starting to break the Sun Devils’ way. All they needed to do was win at Oregon and Arizona, and they’d have salvaged a mind-bogglingly vexing season and turned it into a Pac-12 South title.

But Frank Darby was out of bounds.

At least, that’s what the referee saw, when the sophomore wide receiver tried to toe-tap the back boundary of the end zone on a potentially game-tying two-point attempt at Oregon. Darby disagreed then — he wasn’t alone — and disagrees now, but it’s history at this point.

“The whole time that play, I was like, I knew I was in, I just knew I was in,” he said. “It’s something I do all the time.”

There’s no telling what would have happened if Darby’s two-point conversion had tied the game at 31, but those two points very well could’ve changed everything. Darby sure thinks so.

Darby was at home by himself when he watched the Pac-12 Championship Game between Washington and Utah, so he didn’t hear what Edwards had to say about the product on the field. But he agreed.

Knowing what had happened up in Eugene to keep the Sun Devils out of that game pained him even further.

“Me, watching that game, it just hurt,” he said. “Because every time I watched that game, I’m just thinking about the play that happened at Oregon. We were two points short. We should’ve been there, you know?”

Yes, the 2018 iteration of ASU football went 7-5 on the regular season — 7-6, including a loss to Fresno State in the Las Vegas Bowl.

You could flip any number of 50-50 plays, though — the two-point conversion at Oregon being the one that sticks out the most — and maybe, just maybe the Sun Devils get remembered as an eight- or nine-win team that went to the Pac-12 title game in Herm Edwards’ first season.

But that’s football. Nobody’s trying to change history.

Using that history’s motivation to change the future, though? That’s more like it.

~~~

Finish.

The Sun Devils know they didn’t do it last year. There were plays that went unfinished and games that went unfinished.

Now, there’s business that’s gone unfinished.

Chase Lucas went back to that Oregon game, making it clear that it’s still on his mind as well.

“Man, we lost by seven points, like four games, and the last one was Oregon,” he said. “That was supposed to be the game we would go to the Pac-12 championship. And I think, really, in this locker room, we’re done with that (expletive).”

There was a play early in that game where Lucas had a golden opportunity to stop the Ducks’ opening drive in its tracks. He flew off the right side of the line and had a clear path to Oregon quarterback Justin Herbert to force a three-and-out.

But he whiffed. Herbert found space and picked up the first down, which set the tone for a momentum-setting touchdown drive, the start of a 21-6 Ducks run to open the game.

In that instance, Lucas failed to finish the play. He wasn’t alone, though. It’s not like he cost his team the game on that play.

In reality, though, that was the story of the season. Little moments like that one, where 90 percent execution just wasn’t enough, piling up to keep ASU away from reaching its dreams.

And now, according to the rising junior, it’s the mantra of the brand-new set of spring practices that just opened up Tuesday morning.

“When it comes to our lifting and stuff, all our coaches say is, ‘Finish,’” Lucas said. “And if you don’t finish, you’re doing the whole thing over again… If you don’t finish your rep, if you don’t finish a route, or if you don’t finish a pass breakup, anything, they’re going to take notice of that.”

The meaning of the word is twofold when it comes to the Sun Devils.

“Finish” is about taking care of the little things. It’s about maximizing every rep, every play and every opportunity.

But it’s also about taking the next step as a program. It’s about finishing what was started last year. 2018 was full of question marks — a new coaching staff, a new system, a handful of inexperienced players — that made a mediocre overall win-loss record seem acceptable because successes and failures alike could be viewed as building blocks.

That mindset is valid, and a long-term perspective is important for a transitioning program.

But Lucas admitted it; he couldn’t stand that.

“I don’t want no ‘next year,’” he said. “I want right now. Right here.”

Regardless of how he felt then, though, he knows now is the time to start taking those building blocks and make something out of them — to see that process come to fruition.

“Realistically, we need to start finishing,” Lucas said. “We didn’t finish. And that’s the biggest thing I think we’re going into spring ball with, like, we need to start finishing what we made up.”

If that happens — if “finishing” becomes the norm in Tempe — the frustration and heartbreak that still follows several members of the 2018 team can be erased. Until then, while it still lingers, it serves as motivation.

‘Man, we don’t want to do any of that anymore,’ no seven-point losses, no more, we’re going to finish,” Lucas said. “If we don’t finish in the spring ball practices, you’re going to see a whole new side of Herm that I don’t think I want to see.”

What equally serves as motivation, though, are the memories.

Memories of coming up short on multiple occasions. Memories of what ASU nearly could have had, and now wants even more. Memories of watching other teams — teams the Sun Devils either defeated or had ample chance to defeat — enjoy those experiences.

Make no mistake. The fire has been lit.

“I think we should’ve been (in the Pac-12 Championship Game),” Benjamin said. “But things happen for a reason. Maybe that’s just something we build off of this season. We know that we’re not far from where we want to be. It’s just about going and getting there.”

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