A year ago it took a weekend. One weekend plagued by painstaking errors, out-of-control pitchers and overeager bats led to a four-game series spilt with Miami (OH) and effectively diminished all hope for the season.

Nearly every ounce of enthusiasm surrounding Arizona State baseball swept through the Phoenix Municipal infield dirt, hopped over the Phoenix Zoo and disappeared around the maroon-painted Papago Park mountains.

For a year, it laid dormant.

In that time, the Sun Devils put together a 23-win season for the second-straight year. Amidst fan outcry, Vice President for University Athletics Ray Anderson had to hold a press conference confirming that head coach Tracy Smith was not going to be fired. And eight players left the program, trimming the roster to 25 players, which is by far the smallest in the Pac-12.

Hope seemed bleak.

But just as quick as enthusiasm separated itself from the ASU (3-0) program a season ago, a 46-run effort in a sweep over Notre Dame (0-3) may have blown it back into the Phoenix Muni confines.

Within a half second of home plate umpire Alex Ortiz firing his arms back and calling strike three on Notre Dame’s Zach Mazur -- ending the game at 16-5 -- Spencer Torkelson and Hunter Bishop leaped out of the dugout, sprinting to meet pitcher Chaz Montoya in front of the mound with open arms.

Smith waited a second before exiting the quickly-unpacking dugout. With his assistant coaches trailing behind him by a step, the Sun Devil head man shook the hands of the Fighting Irish coaches, turned around and proceeded to make a v-line for the ASU dugout.

He sauntered forward as his undefeated team celebrated a stone’s throw away. Greeted at the dugout by ball-crazed kids looking for a souvenir, Smith obliged, chucking a few baseballs into the first row. Everyone was happy.

The ardor around Arizona State was unexpected and, three games in, still unwarranted, in the opinions of some. Even Smith said that he’s not putting too much stock into beating a Notre Dame team that won just 24 games a year ago.

“We’re not stupid enough to think it’s going to be like that every time out,” Smith admitted.

But, hey, it sure beats the alternative.

The Sun Devils looked like a composed baseball team, one that’s moved past the faults of old -- most notably committing zero errors over the weekend. At the plate, the Sun Devils racked up three fewer hits (43) than runs (46,) a testament to plate discipline.

Bishop noted that hitting coach Michael Earley gave each guy in the lineup a plan to approach each at-bat with. It’s translated into more video time, more time in the cages to unlock the identity of each hitter and fewer guys pressing.

During opening night, Earley, knowing everyone was hyped up, told each player to head to the plate in their first at-bat armed with their two-strike approach. Behind that, the Sun Devils scored five runs in three innings.

“Last year during opening night, we struck out (eight) times as a team,” Bishop said. “We really had to dial it down, take a deep breath and realize how good we are. Everybody’s pretty easy and confident going up there.”

ASU’s offense, headed by a combined 17 hits and 14 RBI from Torkelson and Bishop, wasn’t necessarily the worry headed into the season. With a power-laden team aided by moved-in fences, ASU was going to score runs.

The questions circulated around ASU’s thin pitching staff, a group that includes just 12 members, six of which are new to Division I baseball. This weekend, every ASU pitcher -- aside from Colby Davis, who is week-to-week with an injury -- took the mound, including five who went out there twice.

That may become the norm.

“Yeah,” Smith said. “All hands on deck. It has to be. Particularly in the year, you’re not going to go much over 85 pitches, probably in the start. Most of these guys were starters in high school, there not used to pitching multiple times in a week. We’ve been building that up.”

It was on the mound, though, that the Sun Devils reverted back to the sins of the past. Even with big leads each night, the Sun Devil pitchers plagued the game with continuous walks, tallying 18 for the weekend.

When the lights came on, the resume ASU’s arms had developed for the last four months seemed to vanish. Hints of adversity turned into larger troubles and location issues seemed to progress with each inning.

Coming into the season, Smith had an idea what role everyone in his bullpen would assume. Brady Corrigan and Erik Tolman were supposed to be the long relievers who may get a start during a mid-week game. Blake Burzell, who was said to have thrown in the high-90s, was slated to be the closer.

Three games into the season and all bets are off.

“That’s probably the thing that’s going to keep me awake tonight. I would have felt like we were going to be a little bit closer to (defining roles,)” Smith said. “We saw stuff this weekend that we have not seen from our guys -- and I’m talking not in a good way -- in the past three to four weeks.

“So whereas I thought, ‘OK, this guy is going to be here.’ The lights got flipped on and things didn’t go accordingly. The sooner we get into that mode of guys knowing where they are, it helps us.”