Sun Devils look to wrap up unbeaten home record

TEMPE, Ariz. (AP) — Seven of the 13 Arizona State seniors playing their final home game Saturday night have a special bond. They are the survivors who sat out a redshirt season as freshmen, then saw the coach who recruited them fired.

Now they are part of a 20th-ranked Sun Devil team that can wrap up a perfect home season with a victory over Washington State.

”No question, we're very close,” quarterback Andrew Walter said. ”I mean, I love all those guys to death and I'd do anything for them today, tomorrow and the next day. I know they'd do the same for me.”

Arizona State (7-2 overall, 4-2 Pac-10) would be 6-0 at home with a victory over the Cougars. The Sun Devils long-term goal is a 9-2 regular season, then a victory in a bowl game.

”It seems like everything just went by in a blur,” said safety Ricardo Stewart, Walter's close friend and classmate. ”I can recall so many things, and when I'm recalling one story, it makes me think of another and another. I've been thinking a lot about it the last few days. This is going to be our last time wearing this maroon and gold running out into that stadium.”

The emotion will be heightened because the late Pat Tillman's jersey will be retired in a halftime ceremony, with many of his former teammates, including Jake Plummer, on hand.

Tillman, an honor student who graduated in 3 1/2 years, helped Arizona State to an 11-0 regular season and the Rose Bowl in 1997, then played five seasons for the NFL's Arizona Cardinals. He gave up millions of dollars to join the Army Rangers following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and died in combat in Afghanistan last April.

”I can't say anything that would help raise his legacy,” Walter said. ”Everything he did speaks for itself. I mean, who am I to talk about something that may be one of the greatest things any of us ever heard?”

The Washington State players will join in the tribute, wearing the initials ”PT” on their helmets.

The Cougars (2-4, 4-5), plagued by injuries all season, snapped a four-game losing streak with a 31-24 victory at UCLA last weekend. Washington State can become bowl eligible by beating the Sun Devils, then finishing with an Apple Cup triumph over Pac-10 doormat Washington.

”We've gone to three bowl games,” Cougars coach Bill Doba said. ”It would be really great to get to four. Primarily I'd like to be able to finish on a winning note for our seniors as much as anything. We don't have a lot of them, but they're really good people and they've paid the price.”

Arizona State's last two home victories at home have been dramatic, to say the least.

Against UCLA, the Sun Devils scored the final 17 points of the game, all in the fourth quarter, to beat UCLA 48-42. Last week against Stanford, the Cardinal took a 31-26 lead with two minutes to play, before Walter directed an 80-yard drive, converting on a second-and-29 situation and throwing the game-winning touchdown pass to Matt Miller with nine seconds left.

Walter, holder of virtually every school passing record, threw four TD passes to break John Elway's Pac-10 career record. Walter has 80 and counting. Elway had 77.

Both teams have running backs coming off big games.

Redshirt freshman Ricky Burgess, switched from wide receiver less than a month ago, rushed for 186 yards in 34 carries for Arizona State.

Washington State's Jerome Harrison, a junior transfer from Pasadena City College, carried a school record 42 times for 247 yards against UCLA — the third-best rushing performance in school history and the biggest day for a Cougars' running back since Rueben Mayes gained 357 yards, an NCAA record at the time, against Oregon in 1984.

”We saw that on video when we recruited him in junior college,” Doba said. ”We saw really good lateral movement and good quickness and good burst.”

Redshirt freshman Alex Brink will make his fourth start at quarterback for Washington State since Josh Swogger went down with a broken foot.

Koetter sees no reason for either team to come in flat for this one, which will be nationally televised by TBS.

”It's the last home game for the seniors, a chance to be undefeated at home, Pat Tillman Day, and the fact that Washington State needs this for a bowl game,” the ASU coach said. ”I think both teams will be motivated.”