Arizona State football: Sun Devils lose a wacky one to San Diego State

3. Arizona State’s run defense struggled a lot

Arizona State had really excelled defensively thus far in the season. They completely shut UTSA down in week one, and it was the defense that won them the game last week against Michigan State. The defense, while it was solid for almost all of the game last night, couldn’t get it done late in the game.

While the Sun Devil offense certainly takes most of the blame for what happened in the second half, the defense is not fully innocent. San Diego State was able to melt a ton of the clock and hold on to the ball for way too long, keeping it on the ground on nearly every single play. Arizona State struggled with tackling, and just let Juwan Washington and Chase Jasmin run all over them late in the game.

The touchdown that sealed the deal late in the game was more of the same. It was a sloppy game from the Arizona State defense, and against a team that can really only do one thing offensively, it’s embarrassing that ASU had no real answer. You can’t get dominated physically by a G5 team like that and expect to make noise in the Pac-12. This defense has a lot of improving to do.

The defense was nowhere near the biggest problem though.