With another Saturday came another win and another boost of confidence for the ASU football team.
The Sun Devils stretched their unbeaten streak to five games when they thumped Stanford 41-3 over the weekend, and junior quarterback Rudy Carpenter said there is a growing swagger throughout ASU's locker room.
"As every week goes on and we keep on winning, guys are getting a lot of confidence and getting some swagger, which are all important for us to keep winning games," he said.
Along with the increased confidence has come improved play on both sides of the ball.
Saturday the defense held the Cardinal to minus-2 yards rushing – the lowest total for an ASU opponent since 1992.
And after not scoring any first quarter points Sept. 22 against Oregon State, ASU put six on the scoreboard in the first 15 minutes at Stanford.
ASU coach Dennis Erickson said Monday he thinks the team is improving mentally as well.
"We're not making near the mistakes we were early in the year," he said.
But the team knows it still needs to improve.
Erickson said his team still needs to get better "in all aspects" of the game if it wants to remain unbeaten.
"You've just got to improve every week,' he said. "You've just got to look where you're at and just get better and better all the time.
"I don't think there isn't an area where we need to improve."
Getting his kicks
Redshirt freshman place kicker Thomas Weber was named the conference's special teams Player of the Week.
Weber made field goal attempts from 41, 32, 38 and 18 yards on Saturday. The four field goal game was a career high for Weber. He also added three extra points.
Weber is now 10 for 10 on field goal tries this season.
Not so hot
With temperatures finally cooling off in Tempe (Tuesday's high is a projected 93 degrees), ASU will begin the rest of its practices at 4 p.m. instead of 6:40 p.m. like it has been all season.
"I don't think you can beat [the weather] right now," he said. "It's pretty darn good."
Erickson said he felt the earlier practice time would help his players with their studies too.
"I like it better [at 4 p.m.] just as far as our student-athletes are concerned with school and study hall and all those things," he said.
More TV
The Pac-10 announced Monday that ASU's Oct. 13 matchup with Washington will be televised nationally on Fox Sports Net. The game begins at 7:15 p.m.
This brings ASU's 2007 televised game total to nine. All of ASU's remaining games except the Nov. 10 contest at UCLA are scheduled to be on TV.
This Saturday's game at Washington State will also be aired nationally on FSN. That game starts at 1 p.m.
Reach the reporter at samuel.good@asu.edu
