The middle of the Pac-10 is crazy.
With everybody beating everybody and a whole slew of teams sitting at 3-3 at the midway point of the season, every game is critical in the fight for bowl eligibility.
With ASU and California both sitting at 3-3, Saturday’s matchup in Berkeley is a huge game for both teams.
The Golden Bears aren’t unlike any of the other conference teams that find themselves bunched up in the middle of the standings. Cal has had its ups and downs.
Two weeks ago, Cal routed UCLA at home, only to lay an egg the next week at Southern California.
“They’re like all of us in this league,” ASU coach Dennis Erickson said. “You don’t know what is going to happen from one week to the next. We’re all kind of like that except Oregon with the way they have been playing.”
That kind of inconsistency also extends to the career of Cal quarterback Kevin Riley.
Riley burst onto the scene as a freshman in 2007, throwing three touchdown passes in the Golden Bears’ Armed Forces Bowl victory.
In his sophomore season, Riley split time with Nate Longshore and didn’t even appear in the bowl game.
Last year, Riley was the full-time starter and threw 18 touchdowns. However, he has developed a knack for being turnover prone and throwing the big interception.
That wasn’t the case last season in Tempe when he led the Golden Bears on a game-winning 74-yard drive that culminated with Giorgio Tavecchio’s game-winning 24-yard field goal.
“Riley has been around a long time,” Erickson said. “You watched him against us last year. You hit him and hit him and at the end of the game he took it 80 odd yards to beat us.”
The Golden Bears’ offense revolves around playmaking junior running back Shane Vereen.
After playing in the shadow of Jahvid Best early in his career, Vereen has become the go-to guy in 2010.
Vereen struggled in Cal’s first two games, but then rattled off a stretch of 198-, 102- and 151-yard games before being held to just 53 yards in the loss to USC.
“When you talk about [Oregon’s LaMichael] James and [Oregon State’s Jacquizz] Rodgers, you’ve got to talk about [Vereen] in the same breath,” Erickson said. “He’s special.”
Erickson went on to note that Vereen is the key to everything that Cal plans to do on offense.
“He is the mainstay of their offense,” Erickson said. “They run a play-action pass off of him. Vereen and the running game is the key to what they do.”
The Golden Bears have a new look on defense in 2010. Cal switched to the 3-4 defense under the direction of new defensive coordinator Clancy Pendergast.
Pendergast served as the Arizona Cardinals defensive coordinator from 2004-08, so Arizona football fans will be familiar with his style of defense.
“You don’t coach in the NFL as long as [Pendergast] has without being good on defense,” Erickson said. “They led the country in defense until the last football game. They’re very physical against the run.”
Pendergast’s defense is still ranked 24th in the nation in total defense, even after being dominated by the Trojans last week.
The Golden Bears held UA to 10 points earlier in the season, but also gave up 52 to Nevada.
“That’s a pretty good defensive football team,” Erickson said. “They had a tough week last week but that is just the nature of our league right now.”
Coming off an impressive road win two weeks ago in Seattle, ASU could start to build some momentum with another road victory in a place where ASU hasn’t won since 1997.
With four wins needed to make a bowl game, every game has huge implications for the Sun Devils.
“Having the bye helps us rest up and get healthy again and be ready for this last stretch,” ASU redshirt junior quarterback Steven Threet said. “We’re really just focused on Cal right now. It’s a big test up in Berkeley and we have to be ready for them.”
Reach the reporter at andrew.gruman@asu.edu
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