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✦ top storylines: notre dame vs. arizona state By Lou Somogyi Devil-May-Care Defense Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, or so says Isaac Newton's third law of classical mechanics. Applying it to defense in football, it can mean that if you have a bend-but-don'tbreak approach, be prepared to give up a lot of completions and yardage (but not necessarily points). The opposite reaction is if you play an aggressive, big-play style of defense, you might get burned with the run. The latter applied to the Arizona State Sun Devils in 2012 and in so far in 2013 too. The good news for the 2012 Arizona State defense was its "Devil-May-Care" defense did finish No. 1 in the nation in tackles for loss per game (9.0) and No. 2 in sacks with 52 (4.0 per game). Headlining that aggressive approach were consensus All-American lineman Will Sutton (13 sacks) and linebacker Carl Bradford (11.5 sacks), both of who returned this season. Ah, but now here is the Newtonian principle of an equal and opposite reaction. The 2012 Sun Devils also finished 81st against the run by yielding a whopping 182.9 yards per contest. In consecutive losses to Oregon (43‑21), UCLA (45-43), Oregon State (36‑26) and USC (38-17), the Sun Devils surrendered an average of 40.5 points, 250.0 yards rushing and 5.3 yards per carry (never less than four yards per carry) in those four contests. The inability to stop the run was again manifested this September versus Arizona State's most recent three opponents: • In a controversial 32-30 victory over Wisconsin Sept. 14, in which miscommunication led to the clock running out before the Badgers could set up for the winning field goal, the Sun Devils saw Wisconsin's Melvin Gordon romp for 193 Redshirt junior linebacker Carl Bradford had 11.5 sacks in 2012, helping ASU rank No. 1 nationally in tackles for loss per game (9.0) and No. 2 in sacks per game (4.0), but the Sun Devils also surrendered 182.9 rushing yards per contest. photo courtesy arizona state yards on just 15 carries, highlighted by an 80-yard touchdown. Subtract that long score and even then Gordon averaged 8.1 yards on his 14 other carries. • The following week during Arizona State's 42-28 loss at No. 5 Stanford, the Cardinal threw only 17 passes but accumulated 240 rushing yards and averaged 4.9 yards per carry. The running back tandem of Tyler Gaffney and Anthony Wilkerson combined for 155 yards on the ground for Stanford, while quarterback Kevin Hogan chipped in with six carries of his own for 45 yards. • Last week, USC sophomore Tre Madden rushed for 128 yards on 20 carries while freshman Justin Davis accumulated 122 yards on the ground in just 10 attempts. They averaged 8.3 yards per carry against the Sun Devils while tallying four touchdowns in the 62-41 defeat. "Most of it has been alignment issues on ✦ Page 7 the perimeter," Arizona State head coach Todd Graham said of the porous run defense. "… We had right at 15 plays last week where we were misaligned. We are going to make some adjustments there that we could do better. … We are just one or two people away from getting it right." Notre Dame's ground attack failed to reach 100 yards rushing in consecutive games against Michigan (96), Purdue (91) and Michigan State (82) prior to putting together a quality 220-yard rushing effort against Oklahoma in last weekend's 35-21 loss. As is natural for any coach, Notre Dame's Brian Kelly publicly will praise any aspect of the opponent and how it can be dangerous to Irish hopes. "You would think at first looking at it, that, 'Boy it's easy to run against them' — but you're in a lot of negative plays," Kelly said. "If you really go through the numbers, you're in a hit-and-miss situation because they bring so much pressure. You have to do a great job of managing the negative plays against them. "If you're not on in terms of picking up a lot of their pressures, you can be turning the ball over and putting yourself into some negative down-and-distance situations. … We have to run the football, there's no question about it. But we have to solve some of their pressures to be effective running it." Will the Irish have the patience and execution skills to run against the Sun Devils? If not, they might be playing into Arizona State's hands … and the Devils defense might be more effective against an idle running game. How Much Left In The Tank? Both Arizona State and Notre Dame will be coming off a stretch of mentally and physically draining games the previ-