The Arizona State Sun Devils and Stanford Cardinal have the same 10-2 records as they face off for the Pac-12 championship at Sun Devils Stadium in Tempe on Saturday night and a BCS bowl berth into the Rose Bowl is on the line and the game is a home one for ASU after their win in the Territorial Cup and that could put things in their favor when the game kicks off.
Taylor Kelly has been great at quarterback for Arizona State this season and that is one reason why they are undefeated at home and now the very productive offensive team will match up with one of the best defensive teams in the nation in Stanford. The Cardinal had national title hopes before falling to Utah earlier in the season and now they have a chance to get into another BCS game under David Shaw with a win over Arizona State and the victory last week for the Sun Devils was huge, because if Arizona won, the conference championship game would have been at Stanford Stadium in Northern California and the team is much tougher to beat at home. These two teams matched up earlier in the season, but that was in Stanford and Arizona State was ranked 23rd and now they are just on the cusp of the top 10 and a victory over Stanford would be a huge boost for a program that looks to be on the way up.
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Stanford is coming into the Pac-12 championship game after a win over Notre Dame last week and that game saw Tyler Gaffney rush for nearly 200 yards and Ty Montgomery has been excellent for Kevin Hogan in the offense all season and those three players will need to contribute on Saturday to get the win over Arizona State. Stanford remained undefeated after playing Arizona State for two more games before getting upset on the road against Utah and the team laster lost away from home against USC and that is what makes this game on the road against ASU so intriguing. Stanford was also undefeated at home and they won two games in a row coming into the matchup and they sport one of the best defenses in the nation, averaging under 20 points allowed per game and they have been one of the best rushing teams in the country, going for over 200 yards per contest.
Arizona State knew going into the matchup against Arizona that they could clinch a home game and with Stanford not losing in 16 games there, ASU had to make sure they took it home and they did and now the high powered offense gets the chance to play against a very skilled defense from David Shaw. Taylor Kelly passed for over200 yards last week and in the game against Stanford earlier in the season, he almost led the Sun Devils to comeback with three touchodwns in the fourth quarter and now he will get them at home after playing on the road. Kelly had 27 touchdowns with over 3,300 yards this season and he directs and offense that ranks 10th in the nation in scoring with over 40 points per game and nearly 300 passing yards per game.
