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Sometimes, preseason college football polls are pretty worthless.
For example, South Carolina was No. 9 in the preseason Associated Press Top 25 last August and the Gamecocks limped to a 7-6 finish. TCU was unranked and finished as the Big 12 co-champion and nearly crashed the College Football Playoff. One year later, and the Frogs are No. 2 in the preseason.
You will see from time-to-time a ranked team as an underdog at an unranked team. Especially if it’s a non-Power 5 ranked club visiting a school from the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 or SEC. The Power 5 schools rarely visit non-Power 5 schools because of money. Those smaller schools build their budgets around cashing checks at the big-boy stadiums.
But it somewhat rare for a ranked team, especially one in the Top 15, to be an underdog in what isn’t a true road game. But that’s the case on Saturday as No. 15 Arizona State faces Texas A&M at NRG Stadium in Houston. The Sun Devils are plus-3 at Sportsbook.com. Essentially, home-field advantage is considered worth about 3 points. So this is closer to a pick ’em as oddsmakers are considering A&M playing at home since it’s in Texas. Certainly the fan advantage is likely to be at least 80 percent Aggies fans if not more.
I will choose an upset alert choice every week, and by upset I mean an outright win, not just a cover against the spread. The only SEC team that’s an underdog in Week 1 is Vanderbilt at home against Western Kentucky, a game I looked at here on the site for my “lock” of the week. So ASU is my upset choice even though it’s pseudo-cheating.
Texas A&M is going to score on Saturday, but scoring has never been the problem. Defense has been. The Aggies have finished last in total defense in the SEC in the last two seasons while posting a 7-9 conference record. In fact, defense has been a problem under Kevin Sumlin dating to his days at the University of Houston. Sumlin’s defenses have ranked 100th or worse nationally in total yards during five of his seven years as a head coach.
So Sumlin hired one of the most respected defensive coordinators in the nation this offseason in LSU’s John Chavis. His defenses the previous seven seasons were never lower than 26th and had an average national ranking of 11th.
Still, it’s going to be tested. The Sun Devils, who averaged 36.9 points in 2014, have a veteran quarterback in senior Mike Bercovici, even though this is the first season he will be a full-time starter. He did get plenty of time last year when Taylor Kelly was hurt, completing 115-for-186 for 1,445 yards, 12 touchdowns and four picks. In his first career start against UCLA he threw for 488 yards and in the next against USC for 510. Those 998 yards were an NCAA record for a QB’s first two starts.
ASU also has multi-talented D.J. Foster, who was the only player in the nation to finish with more than 1,000 rushing yards and 600 receiving yards last season. He has moved to wide receiver, but coach Todd Graham will still get him some handoffs. Foster may be the most versatile offensive weapon in the country. Arizona State also has a deep group of running backs in Demario Richard, Kalen Ballage and JUCO transfer De’Chavon Hayes.
None other than top ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit picked Arizona State to make the College Football Playoff. The Sun Devils have yet to do one thing in their history: beat an SEC team. They are 0-6, although two of those losses were to Arkansas before it was in the conference.
Saturday’s game is the first meeting between the schools, but Sumlin and Graham faced off three times while Sumlin was at Houston and Graham at Tulsa. This also is the only regular-season game between a Pac-12 and SEC school in 2015.
Matt Severance is a contributing writer for Saturday Down South. He covers SEC football, Florida, Tennessee and South Carolina.
