If anyone truly was surprised by what took place last night in Palo Alto, please raise your hand.

Anyone?

And if so, how could you be?

There has been almost nothing this season that would indicate the Sun Devils are bowl material. Hanging with Georgia looked more impressive before it became clear how mediocre the Bulldogs are this season - if anything the loss is more galling.

Beating Washington was to be expected; even if I bought into the Sarkisian hype and the victory over USC and questioned how ASU could be favored to win the game. It turns out Vegas was right, as it usually turns out to be.

If there were any surprises on Saturday they were on the defensive end, where the Sun Devils allowed the Cardinal and Toby Gerhart to run virtually at will. For all his talent, Vontaze Burfict has shown next to no ability to contain his emotions - it will just keep getting worse as referees start viewing everything he does through the filter of his reputation.

Danny Sullivan was terrible against the Cardinal - why anyone would have expected anything different, again, I don’t know - and the running game was back struggling once again.

It’s a lost season, Sun Devil fans. All that’s left to do is take the remaining beatings, including the inevitable loss to the Wildcats, and try to figure out how the pieces can be put back together for next season.

I’m not quite prepared to say the game has passed Dennis Erickson by but the evidence seems to be mounting. This is a roster not built to compete in the Pac-10 Conference, one of the easier conferences this side of the Big East (Cincinnati aside.)

Something needs to change in terms of the system, in terms of discipline and in terms of accountability. Will it happen? We’ll know next fall.

From the Sun City Daily News-Sun on October 15, 1993 written by yours truly (and please forgive the pun. I was young.)

* * *

TEMPE - Like a homeowner with a leaky faucet, Arizona State Coach Bruce Snyder has called for the Plummer.

Jake Plummer, a true freshman from Boise, Idaho, will start for the Sun Devils as they play host to Oregon on Saturday at Sun Devil Stadium. …

“As a coach you try to inject something someplace which will give you some life,” (Arizona State coach Bruce) Snyder said of benching (Grady) Benton against the (Washington State) Cougars. “We thought, here’s maybe a livelier arm. That’s why we made the change.” …

The blame for Arizona State’s 2-3 start (0-2 Pacific-10 Conference) does not fall on Benton alone. Wide receivers have been dropping the ball and the running game has not yet gotten untracked.

“We’re not rushing for touchdowns right now other than if we go into our goal-line offense,” Snyder said. “You’d like to think you’d get a 20-, 30- or 40-yard run for touchdown but we’re not getting that.”

* * *

Sound familiar, anyone?

This was one of those games where the numbers simply lie. The final score will tell you the game was close but it really wasn’t, outside of a few brief minutes after Arizona State’s first touchdown, before the shock of seeing an effective scoring drive gave way to the reality of the offensive situation.

Danny Sullivan finished the night 32-of-58 for 338 yards, which seemingly beats the hell out of the 10-for-33 from Georgia. And he looked downright masterful on Arizona State’s stunning 22-play drive for its final touchdown, a drive that took nearly seven minutes off the clock with ASU trailing by 18 points.

(Rumor also has it that Eagles coach Andy Reid called Dennis Erickson this morning to help him with his two-minute offense.)

“We’re moving the ball pretty well, actually, when you really think about it,” Sullivan told reporters after the game. “When we got across the 50, we couldn’t do anything. We need to look at tape and figure it out.”

Look at the tape? Really? I mean, the leaping receivers weren’t a hint at what was going wrong Saturday night?

Let me recap Arizona State’s first drive - underthrown pass that the defense batted away (another two yards of air on the ball and the receiver’s still running down the field), overthrown ball, overthrown ball, punt.

Later on we had the long pass to McGaha, who still was running the fakes on his route when the too-quickly-delivered ball hit the turf. There was the interception that was not only underthrown but should have earned a fair catch signal as it fluttered. And then there were assortment of other passes endangering people on the sidelines and the first two rows.

During his post-game show, Erickson blamed penalties and dropped passes. Dropped passes? Maybe Erickson turned to a different game after realizing he can’t get Versus on the Arizona State sideline, but there was only one dropped pass among the 58. Any other “drops” had defenders hands on them.

Look, I’m not saying Danny Sullivan was the reason the Sun Devils lost to Oregon State for the first time since a couple months after man landed on the moon. There was enough ineptitude to go around, from the rolled shotgun snap to the dropped punt snap (maybe Dennis counted that as a drop) to the wide open receivers streaking down the hashes.

This team is undisciplined, unsound and uninspired. (Which reminds me, for all the talk of 2010, can the season ticket holders get a warning the next time around … a disclaimer letting us now before we spend our money that it has been decided the program’s taking a collective redshirt season?) It’s almost cruel the degree to which the optimism of 2007 has been crushed.

Sullivan isn’t the only culprit. In fact, he’s most likely performing to the best of his ability. Which only means that he shouldn’t be a starting quarterback at a Pacific-10 Conference school not located in Pullman. If there aren’t any other quarterbacks ready, as has been hinted, then the coaching staff should surrender a few paychecks for not preparing a quarterback for the season.

Danny Sullivan should not, can not be the starter against Washington State this week in Pullman. Maybe Brock Osweiler and Samson Szakacsy turn out to be no better under center for a full game. If nothing else, they’ll get some live snaps under center to help prepare for next season rather than have those same snaps go to someone who has maxed out his potential already.

With Sullivan at quarterback, there are at most three and more likely two winnable games left on the schedule - Wazzu and UCLA. (I’ve added Cal just because they seem on the verge of another epic collapse, similar to 2007.)

Looking at things in that light, there just doesn’t seem to be anything left to lose … well, except for the support of a rapidly deteriorating fan base.

In tossing both bids to purchase the team (and simultaneously telling the league to make a better bid), Judge Redfield Baum essentially put everything taking place off the ice back at square one.

Which is appropriate, because in many ways the Coyotes on the ice are going to be starting from square one:

• Departed defenseman Derek Morris, the lone player willing to speak out about Wayne Gretzky’s tenure as coach, has said the system that Tippett installs will be the team’s first in years - Gretzky, he says, never really had one.
• No longer will the coach beat the backup goalie out of the parking lot.
• Accountability is coming … Tippett’s system is built around defense and making smart decisions with the puck. The turnovers in and around the Phoenix net that have plagued the Coyotes the last few years aren’t going to be tolerated if history is a guide.

Questions clearly remain.

There’s raw, young talent on offense but there still doesn’t seem to be anyone who can take the scoring burden off captain Shane Doan. And as good as Doan has become, he shouldn’t be carrying any team’s scoring load.

The goaltending situation is a bit of a mess. Ilya Bryzgalov admits that he played poorly last year but it’s unclear if he’s going to be able to get himself turned around. In the preseason he was lucky as often as good. Behind him is Jason LaBarbera, who failed to hang on to the Los Angeles Kings’ starting job in spite of thin talent making the push.

As mentioned above, Keith Yandle and Zbynek Michalek need to limit their mistakes in their own zone lest they spend time in Tippett’s doghouse.

To the positive, at least the players will know where they stand. There won’t be mysterious healthy scratches and muddled messages. Tippett will tell them where they stand and what he expects. The rest is up to them.

No one is predicting anything for this team and if come midseason it’s still unclear whether they’ll be here or moving on, the outside forces will drag down anything that happens on the ice.

For now, though, there’s a determination in the locker room to show not that hockey can succeed in the desert but that this team can succeed and get to the postseason. Will that be enough to sneak into the West’s eighth playoff spot? The coming months will tell.

There are positives to be taken from Arizona State’s 20-17 loss to Georgia, at least as much as can be taken from a game that was there for the taking.

In holding the Bulldogs, who were hanging a half hundred on folks, to just 20 points the defense proved they are a force to be reckoned with in the Pac-10.

Dmitri Nance rushed for 100 yards, at least for a while, before finishing just below the mark.

And overall, the Sun Devils seemed remarkably unfazed by their first-ever trip to a Southeastern Conference stadium.

But …

10 for 33, 116 yards.

First and 10 on the Georgia 48 following a terrific Kyle Williams return and the Devils go three and out.

First and 10 on the Georgia 20 following Jarrell Holman’s second pick, and the Devils lose a yard before Bobby Wenzig’s field goal try was blocked.

Talk all you want about the dropped passes, but still …

10 for 33, 116 yards.

It’s clear from the play-calling that the coaching staff either is aware of what Danny Sullivan can do (being generous) or is aware of his limitations as a Division I quarterback (being less generous.) With so little faith and with such clear evidence that this job is above his skills, hard as he tries, how can Dennis Erickson possibly justify starting him against Oregon State to begin what is shaping up to be a fairly open Pac-10 season?

To the argument that a change shouldn’t be made because “what happens if Brock Osweiler struggles, too” I only can say …

10-of-33, 116 yards.

Arizona State’s defense is too good for this to merely be a caretaker season while Brock Osweiler (or Samson Szakacsy for that matter) spends the year flashing signals from the sideline. The defense deserves better. The seniors deserve better. Even us fans deserve better.

Oregon State at home is a winnable game, but not with …

10-of-33, 116 yards.

I don’t blame Danny Sullivan as he’s doing the best he can. He shouldn’t have been left in to struggle against the Bulldogs between the hedges. He shouldn’t had the opportunity to put up that line in what easily could have been a landmark victory for the Arizona State program.

A good coach puts his players in a position to succeed. Sullivan isn’t in that position. Not even close. Talk about his zero interceptions entering the game (and that he still only has one) and I’ll show you his one touchdown entering the game (which now is two.)

This season still can turn out to be surprisingly successful, given what we are seeing on the defensive side of the ball. But it’s not going to happen if we see 10-of-33, 116 yards again.

Expecting more out of Sullivan is expecting a great deal.

This is what Jobing.Com Arena looked like just a few minutes before the Coyotes played the Kings Tuesday night in Glendale. As you can see on this video (and my apologies on the sound) it didn’t get any better when the game started.

(Before the sarcastic comments begin … no, this isn’t a typical crowd.)

The Coyotes announced an attendance of 4,643 which, since that total takes into account sold season tickets, means the team has 4,500 season ticket holders. Everyone else seemed to be there to watch David Spina, who went to school at Mesa Red Mountain.

In reality, there might have been 1,500 people in the arena. Some sections had less than a dozen people; almost none had more than 100. Shouted instructions from the ice could be heard clearly in the press seats at the very top of the arena.

Will these seats be filled when the regular season begins? If the team stays here, some will. If the team wins, more will. As some of us in the press box last night discussed, if the Coyotes don’t go in the tank after the All-Star break and make the playoffs instead of falling into the Western Conference cellar, we’d be having a far different conversation.

Jerry Moyes still would have been losing money but the franchise would have had at least a couple of home playoff games. And those would have sold out, no matter what my East Valley friends say about the drive. Fans in the Valley are nothing if not fickle and they love nothing more than jumping on a bandwagon.

But if this becomes a lame duck season … the scene you see above likely will repeat itself over and over again.

It takes a lot of work to have less energy in a building than on a Tuesday night IHL game like the Phoenix Roadrunners had at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum back in the day. That was the case last night. That will probably be the case Friday.

Whatever he decides, Judge Redfield T. Baum’s decision can’t come soon enough.

It might not be a must win game from the football standpoint, even though it’s a division game that should end with a “W”. But from the perspective of the Cardinals’ tenuous bandwagon, where the slightest bump in the road will likely send the folks who only discovered the club last spring running for the emergency exits, a loss today after the club’s lackluster exhibition season could be devastating.

How long will it take the public to turn its back if Kurt Warner struggles? If Beanie Wells’ injury history becomes an injury present? If the running game, spotty on its best days last year, remains fallow? If the defense still is letting opponents march unimpeded around the field?

How long will it take for everyone to remember the stumble to the playoffs and how long will it take the  good will of an improbable Super Bowl run to disappear?

If the Cardinals lose today, the answer would be about three hours.

All that was missing as players completed their physicals and extra-curricular sessions for the scoreboard videas and such was certainty about the team’s future location and the presence of coach and minority owner Wayne Gretzky.

With the team’s ownership status in limbo pending Judge Redfield T. Baum’s decision in the Coyotes’ bankruptcy case, Gretzky decided on Friday to not attend training camp until the situation was resolved.

Ulf Samuelsson will serve as the team’s acting coach for the time being.

“He’s trying to do his best putting distractions to a minimum,” Coyotes captain Shane Doan told reporters Saturday afternoon. “He’s been put in an awkward situation.”

As general manager Don Maloney put it, if Gretzky had elected to be present for camp, what would happen if the team’s ownership changed hands and he no longer was coach?

“What are you going to do,” Maloney asked, “Lead him out in handcuffs?”

Gretzky is due to make $8.5 million as the team’s coach this season, which remains awfully high for someone who has yet to lead his team into the playoffs. Then again, he’s also Wayne Gretzky and he’s also a minority owner in the team so the lines easily become blurred.

“I think this has been devastating for him,” Maloney said. “He’s the nicest man in the world, would do anything for anybody and he’s been painted almost as a bad guy in this scenario.”

Gretzky’s absence either overshadowed or highlighted the team’s tenuous situation as camp opened, a feeling at least Doan remembers.

“It was like this my first year (in Winnipeg) and it’s the same thing again 14 years later,” he said.

“Guys are really looking forward to playing our first game right now. All we’ve heard is how awful Phoenix is. I’ve been here 14 years and haven’t found it awful. I’m not saying it’s a hockey town like Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto or the other Canadian cities, but at the same time it’s been great.”

What hasn’t been great has been the Coyotes’ performance on the ice - it’s been six years since the last postseason Whiteout took place.

“The bottom line for this organization is you’ve got to win games,” said veteran defenseman Ed Jovanovski. “It’s the only way you’ll have a chance.”

Glendale objects to having the lease with Jobing.Com Arena broken? Here is $50 million, petulant child. Now go away and let the adults talk.

Oh, by the way NHL Governors, I’m now lowering my bid to reflect the pocket change I handed Glendale. Don’t like it? Not my problem.

And neither is the relocation fee. You’ll accept my $15 million or you can go pound sand, I really don’t care either way.

Nor does it matter that the entire season’s schedule already has been put together, complete with a team in Phoenix. If teams scheduled to play in Phoenix between stops in Los Angeles, San Jose or Anaheim and Dallas now have to fly three quarters of the way across the continent to Ontario, so be it. Toss out a dollar figure for the jet fuel. I’m good for it.

Because, at the end of the day, Canada needs … nay, deserves … a seventh franchise. Never mind the departures of the Nordiques and the Jets and the conversations surrounding other struggling franchises just a short decade or so ago. The country has the right to seven franchises, existing territorial rights be damned.

Just name a figure for those, too. There’s some money in between the cushions of my couch.

Having attended about one-third of the Phoenix Coyotes’ homes games since their move here - subject to the whims of my free-lance employers - I’d hate to see them leave. Still, at this point, I’m more than tired of the story. Move or don’t, stay or go. Just let us know.

But it’s really, really hard to get behind someone who seems determined to throw money at this particular issue no matter what the cost and no matter what precedents may be set.

Just for kicks: Which kicking record would you want least - Thomas Weber’s record-tying five field goals against Idaho State in Arizona State’s 50-3 win (he missed a sixth attempt) or Alex Zendejas Jr.’s record-tying four field goals that nearly was the sum total of Arizona’s output against Central Michigan?

Yeah, me too.

Gone quackers: Can someone explain the ugliness I saw from Oregon at Boise State on Thursday? No, not the punch - the new uniforms, complete with pseudo-wings on the shoulder pads. Or were those palm fronds? Kinda hard to tell. Between those and the offense, the Ducks were almost completely unwatchable.

Yawn: This just in. USC is going to be good this year.

Surprise: Washington might not suck, not after hanging with LSU. (Speaking of which, the Bayou Bengals should get more credit for leaving the southeast region to play … outside of the odd trip to UCLA or USC, or even Tempe, few others from the SEC seem willing to wander outside of their comfort zone.)

Oooooooooooh: The sound heard when the replay of Vontaze Burfict’s third-quarter sack was played on the big screen at Sun Devil Stadium. Check out the clip and listen around the 38-second mark.

This one looks good on YouTube but in person it was about as violent - and legal - a hit as you’ll ever see in a collegiate game.

Giving the keys to the kids: UCLA started a freshman at quarterback. USC started a freshman at quarterback. Stanford started a freshman at quarterback.

Have I mentioned Brock Osweiler is a freshman?

(If anyone can find the clip of his touchdown pass, post the link … I’ve been looking in vain for it.)