A trip to Eugene to face the eventual Pac-12 champion Oregon Ducks started to downward spiral which eventually lead to the firing of embattled coach Dennis Erickson. After losing in front of Gameday 41-27 to the Ducks, ASU would win just one more game against Colorado and would drop 4 straight all to conference opponents. However, the Sun Devils were still in the conversation going into the final week and could have found themselves in the Rose Bowl. Instead, a loss against California and a stunning Utah loss against Colorado had ASU back into the Las Vegas Bowl.
Boise State on the other hand came into the season with BCS expectations. Boise State opened the season with a marquee game against Georgia which saw them fall behind early. When the dust settled though, BSU shined with a dominate 35-21 victory in the partisan Georgia Dome. The Broncos rose as high as #5 and were primed to make a push for the title game when TCU handed BSU a rare home defeat, derailing their championship hopes and pushing them back for another year.
This game promises to be an aerial display, Boise and ASU are 10th and 11th in the country in passing yards respectively and the difference between them is 0.1 yard per game. It's no surprise as each of these teams feature Quarter Backs who will play in the NFL some day.
Boise has a top 25 defense against the pass but showed signs of weakness against TCU, in the only game they lost. There were a few occasions when receivers got by Boise defenders deep for big plays. Normally, the Bronco's defense is stout and allows just over 170 yards per game through the air. Their only loss skews that number some as Casey Pachall torched the D for 473 yards and 5 touch downs. Brock Osweiler and Co are sure to be watching footage of that game as they look for potential weaknesses against a talented squad which has shut down every other team it has faced.
To the contrary, ASU has not been good against the pass. They took hits to their depth early on in the season losing several talented defensive backs. What remained was burned through out the year as they posted bottom 20 passing defense numbers. Their worst performance of the season came on the road against Washington State where Freshman Connor Halliday stepped in part way through the first quarter and connected with Marquess Wilson for 85 of his eventual 494 passing yards on the day. Boise's strength is with the pass and Kellen Moore has to be licking his chops facing this secondary.
The aforementioned Moore is the picture of consistency. Completing nearly 75% of his passes, Moore has thrown for 41 scores on the year and 3507 yards. The senior signal caller will no doubt go down as the best quarter back to play on Boise's blue turf in school history. Moore has spread the ball all over the field but his favorite targets are Senior Tyler Shoemaker and Freshman Matt Miller. The tandem have accounted for 117 receptions and Shoemaker is only 41 yards from eclipsing 1000 yards on the year. He has also been the recipient of 15 TD passes from Moore. The passing game has been complimented nicely by Doug Martin.
The senior running back is a touchdown machine. In 5 of the last 6 games Martin has played in he has gone for over 100 yards and has found the end zone 7 times in that stretch. Martin runs well behind his pads and runs with authority. Martin is tough to tackle and could provide problems for the Sun Devil defense. Backing him up is D.J. Harper. Harper is another senior who filled in nicely in Martin's absence. Against TCU and UNLV he ran for 125 and 109 yards respectively, scoring three times. Martin and Harper are similar in stature and if ASU misses a tackle on either of them, it could go for a long gain.
The Boise State defense is tasked with slowing down Brock Osweiler and the Sun Devils passing attack. As was mentioned before, the Sun Devils and the Broncos have nearly identical passing statistics over the season. The difference is that Boise has thrown the ball to extend leads where as ASU has been behind in a lot of their games and have had to throw to either keep pace or claw their way back into games. Much of the Sun Devil's attack comes through Garrell Robinson who has almost twice as much yardage as the next leading receiver. Robinson simply finds ways to get open and comes down with the ball.
One under rated aspect of the ASU offense is their run game. Almost all of it has come from Cameron Marshall who has over 1100 yards so far. No one in the Pac-12 has rushed for more touch downs than him, either, touching the painted area 18 times on the ground. In an extension of the run game you will find the Devils' utility man in Jamal Miles. Miles hasn't run for many yards but he has caught 60 passes, many of them in the flat to keep the offense moving and the defenses honest.
Arizona State is a big underdog in this game but with their passing offense they stand a punchers chance against the Broncos. BSU showed that they can be susceptible to a passing offense but with extra time for coach Petersen to prepare, expect the Broncos to be ready to go against another Pac-12 foe.
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