2012 Week 1

#6TCU completely outplayed the very overrated #7 ASU in Fort Worth. If this game is an indication of what the season's going to be like, it's gonna be a rough one. Despite his 138 yards and 7.6 YPC on 18 carries, it was very tough sledding for Cameron Marshall as his numbers are skewed by a 66 yarder. He had far more carries under 2 yards than he had ones over 2 which meant that ASU had to pass the ball a lot. This is where we showed just how bad we could be this year. SR QB Osweiler completed 7 of 15 passes, but he was sacked an astonishing 11 times (meaning he as sacked 42% of the time he dropped back to pass)! Prior to their last offense play of the game, ASU could only account for 115 yards of total offense in the game.

The kids from TCU were very noticeably bigger and stronger than the Devils, be it their D-line breaking through our O-line with ease, or their HB absolutely steamrolling our safeties, or their O-line steamrolling our D-line (see the vid on DW of their QB running the ball as I think I had 8 guys flattened on that play). With all that said, however, our offense did not turn the ball over and our defense played just well enough to keep us close.

ASU was down 4 late in the 4th and driving. They got into FG range, but after a sack they were left with 4th and long and had to settle for a 49yd FG. After hitting 2 51 yarders earlier in the game, the kicker pushed this one left so we were still down by 4. After a defensive stop, we had the ball on our own 35 yard line with 1:28 remaining, still down 4. After an incomplete pass that bounced out of the CB's hands and into my receiver's hands on the TCU 35 yard line only to be knocked loose by a jarring hit by the safety it was 2nd and 10. Following sacks #10 and #11, it was 4th and 26 on our own 19 yard line with 1 minute to go. For one of the very rare times during the game, the O-line held back the TCU rush and Osweiler hit a streaking Pickens for the go ahead score on an 81 yard TD pass. TCU would drive and get to midfield and were down to 4th and 10, still outside of FG range. The QB completed a 9.5 yard pass that was just short and ASU wins 20-17.

Next week we travel to Madison to face our 2nd straight top 20 team on the road and unless our O-line dramatically improves in 7 days, that game could be really, really ugly.