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To start, the officials or officiating have never made a good, bad, ugly, nor should my job be to talk about the officiating rather than the players in the game.
Yes, the call was blown, but ASU's inability to take advantage of the opportunities on offense after the defense shut down Oregon for just three second-half points is unforgivable.
The Good
Special teams in this game was great aside from one long punt return which led to Oregon's field goal in the fourth quarter, but the edge goes to the second-half defense of ASU.
Is there a correlation between Merlin Robertson's return and the great performance by the defense for the final 30 minutes? Who knows, but something clicked after the halftime.
They had three takeaways in the whole game that the Devils turned into points, and even a late interception that gave the offense great field position and a chance to take the lead.
Oregon had seven drives in the second half and only scored once. That's how you recover from the bad first half.
The Bad
Good segue right?
Which is worse, allowing an opening drive touchdown to the opponent or allowing a 39-second scoring drive to close the half? Both are bad.
Another 400-plus yard performance out of the opposing offense put the Devils in the rearview mirror early and it seemed there would be no recovery.
Oregon put together scoring drives of 78, 83, 75 and 71 yards in the half and all for touchdowns. One of those drives saw the secondary burned on a 57-yard strike from Justin Herbert to Dillon Mitchell.
With Khalil Tate of Arizona throwing a lot more this season, will the pass defense step up in Tucson?
The Ugly
Manny Wilkins.
He is a great leader of this team, he speaks well to the media, but why, oh why, is he so inconsistent at quarterback?
In by far his worst performance of the season, he completed not even half of his passes for under 200 yards and finished with a QBR of 31.3. That's hideous.
I'll give him props for not throwing the ball to the other team, but under pressure he fumbled on what would be the Devils' final possession.
ASU is only playing for better bowl odds and to prevent rival Arizona from clinching a bowl this Saturday down south.
The last time ASU was victorious in Tucson was 2012. Will the Devils finish their rocky season on a high note, or crumble under the pressure?