EUGENE, Ore. — Saturday afternoon, Autzen Stadium's sidelines featured two teams with similar stories. Both ASU and Oregon feature high-powered offenses with porous defenses, and both were led by freshmen with very little experience under their belts.
Between the two true freshmen, Oregon's Justin Herbert outdueled ASU's Dillon Sterling-Cole en route to a 54-35 win for the Ducks (3-5, 1-4 Pac-12). With the defeat, the Sun Devils (5-4, 2-4 Pac-12) have lost three games in a row and four of their last five.
Herbert mastered an ASU secondary — one that was without sophomore Kareem Orr and redshirt sophomore Armand Perry — to the tune of a school record 489 yards and four touchdowns, moving the ball nearly at-will.
The performance was reminiscent of ASU's first loss of the season when another true freshman quarterback — USC's Sam Darnold — had his way with the Sun Devil secondary.
"We tried to get after him and pressure him and do some things," Graham said. "We hit him quite a bit, but we never could get in a rhythm defensively."
Herbert's main advantage was taking advantage of soft coverage for big plays, completing eight passes over 20 yards, including three of his scores.
For every pressure, ASU generated, it blew a coverage down field, confounding Graham and leaving him with simplistic terms for describing the defensive effort.
"We couldn't get up," Graham said. "Defensively, we just... We didn't play very good."
On the other sideline, Sterling-Cole was given the keys to the kingdom for the first time in his young career and was not given the same freedoms with the offense.
Aided by heavy doses of junior running back Kalen Ballage and redshirt freshman running back Nick Ralston, Sterling-Cole was not asked to be the center of the unit in the first half, throwing the ball just 14 times.
In the fourth quarter, with his team down by 19 and needing points, Graham unleashed Sterling-Cole. On 20 attempts, the freshman completed 12 passes for 201 yards and a score to get the Sun Devils back within striking distance.
Ballage took notice, praising his young signal caller for picking up the mantle from redshirt sophomore Manny Wilkins so quickly.
"I think he did a great job," Ballage said. "He did a lot of preparing this week, a lot of stuff after hours that he had to come up and watch extra film and do a lot of things. I think he played great considering everything that's been going on here."
Despite the statistical discrepancy between the quarterbacks, Sterling-Cole, with the help of Ballage, had ASU down just five points in the closing minutes, a defensive stop away from one more shot at the end zone and a win.
Oregon, initiated by a run by Herbert, made sure he never got that chance. The Ducks went 75 yards in three plays to extend their lead back to 12 points, meaning ASU was two drives away, once again.
Once again, the ball was placed in Sterling-Cole's hands, but he could not claw ASU back any more. On the ninth play of the drive, Sterling-Cole was intercepted by junior cornerback Tyree Robinson, closing the door on any comeback opportunity by the Sun Devils.
A few plays later, the Ducks scored again, sending ASU home with a new tally in the "L" column.
The game, like many players on the roster, was lost, but Graham continues to praise his unit, one hit by some of the worst injury luck he's said he's ever seen.
"I told them I'm sick of talking about heart," Graham said. "But I'm very, very proud of not just one side of the ball, our guys have great heart."
Reach the reporter at mtonis@asu.edu or follow @Tonis_The_Tiger on Twitter.
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