ASU looks to keep momentum vs. Utah

Two days removed from perhaps his team’s biggest win of the season, ASU football coach Herm Edwards turned his attention to perhaps the best team his has faced yet – Pac 12 South frontrunner Utah.

The Sun Devils (4-4, 2-3) will entertain the No. 16 Utes (6-2, 4-2) at 1 p.m. on Saturday. It will mark the fifth ranked opponent ASU has faced this season.

Utah has won four straight games, scoring 40 or more points in each of those so Edwards knows his team will have to continue to build upon Saturday’s 38-35 road win over USC.

“This is a senior-laden team and it doesn’t give up a lot of points,” Edwards said of Utah. “They’re big and physical up front on both sides of the ball, especially with the defensive line, and the secondary is active so we’re going to see a lot of man coverage.”

The Utes’ convincing win over UCLA last week and the other results in the Pac-12 left Utah, the only team in the South that hasn’t played for the conference title, alone in first place with two losses.

All five of the other South teams have three losses.

So this week’s contest is a chance for the Sun Devils to put themselves back in the postseason discussion although it would still be an uphill battle. ASU has games left against UCLA, Oregon and rival Arizona.

Edwards said it was important for his team to have something positive to build on after having lost four of its previous five games. The Sun Devils took a 24-7 lead, then gave up 21 straight points but were able to overcome that and hand the Trojans a rare loss at the Coliseum.

“That was a great win for our guys,” Edwards said. “To beat a team with that many athletes there where they don’t usually lose. It was a big confidence builder for us. Our guys have battled all season and it was nice to see them rewarded for that.”

Edwards compares Utah to a couple of opponents ASU has already faced: Michigan State, whom it beat by three points on a last-second field goal, and Stanford, to whom it lost by seven points two weeks ago.

“They’re a physical football team,” he said of Utah. “They like to run the football and they run it with a purpose. They remind me a lot of those two teams we have played.”

Junior quarterback Tyler Huntley and junior running back Zach Moss are the biggest weapons in that Utah arsenal. Moss, the third-leading rusher in the conference, has rushed for 10 touchdowns and 964 yards, an average of 121 per game.

The Sun Devils’ defense, which will have the tough task of stopping that high-powered offense, could be missing a couple of players. Both freshman defensive lineman D.J. Davidson and senior safety Jalen Harvey sustained injuries in the first quarter against USC.

Davidson, who has not started but played in all eight games, sustained a broken right ankle and is out for the season. He was attempting to make a tackle and ended up on the bottom of a pile.

Harvey, who injured his shoulder, is still being evaluated. He has a teamhigh 59 tackles, 47 of those solo, just months removed from a position change as he came to the program as a wide receiver.

Harry gets Pac-12 honor

ASU junior wide receiver/punt returner N’Keal Harry was named the Pac-12 Special Teams Player of the Week.

Harry, who was also named to the Paul Hornung Award Honor Roll for week 9, returned a punt 92 yards for a touchdown late in the third quarter that gave ASU a crucial 31-28 lead.

That return was the third-longest in Sun Devil history and the longest since Morris Owens’ school record 95yard return in 1972.

Harry accounted for 203 all-purpose yards in the game as he also caught four passes for 95 yards and carried the ball twice for five yards.

UCLA game time set

ASU's Nov. 10 home finale against UCLA has been scheduled to kick off at noon and will be televised on the Pac-12 Network. It is the Sun Devils' fourth afternoon game of the season.

It will be the Sun Devils' Senior Day and also the school's Salute to Military Day.

Sun Devils get commitment

ASU struck a big blow in landing a commitment from 6-foot-3, 180pound wide receiver Chad Johnson Jr., out of Venice High School in California.

He is the son of the Pro Football Hall of Famer by the same name. Johnson is a junior and has 64 catches for 906 yards and 11 touchdowns this season. The four-star recruit had offers from Oregon State and Florida Atlantic.