Devils in the NFL: Recent Former Devil Ready for NFL Debut
With all of the fantastic happenings around Sun Devil football these days, it’s time to look forward to the day of good ASU football this weekend — Sunday. Former Sun Devil football, that is.
We’ve previously addressed the 19 Arizona State players in the NFL as well as Sun Devils playing prominent roles in fake football. Now, we’ve got a new name to add to both lists, and it’s one that should be familiar to even the relatively new ASU football fans.
Ryan Torain, who started at running back for ASU the last two seasons, looks like he’ll be making his pro debut on Sunday.
Denver Broncos head coach Mike Shanahan reportedly fell in love with Torain’s game in training camp this past summer, which is both surprising and not. Surprising, because Shanahan’s incessant rotation of running backs in the post-Terrell Davis era can annoy even the most ardent Broncos fan, and unsurprising because, well, we all know what Torain can do.
“He’s one of the most gifted running backs I’ve been around for a long time. He is very similar to Terrell Davis when he came in,” Shanahan told the Denver Post back in early August.
The gift he’s talking about is that powerful, never-say-die style that led Torain to pick up 145 rushing yards in a win over Arizona in Tucson in 2006 and 150 total yards and three touchdowns in the Sun Devils’ comeback win over Oregon State last season.
If only the Sun Devils had him in the losses to Oregon and USC in 2007… sigh. He missed the second half of last season with a foot injury, and missed the first half of this NFL season with an elbow injury. That foot injury allowed the Broncos to get a steal in the NFL draft, selecting him in the fifth round, and the elbow injury might allow you to get a midseason steal in your fantasy league.
Torain is going to play, and he might not come along as slowly as we’d assume a rookie returning from injury would. With injuries to Selvin Young and Andre Hall, and with Michael Pittman nicked up, Torain might get a good chunk of carries right away.
We don’t have a whole lot on the field at Sun Devil Stadium to be proud of these days, but we might well have somebody to root for on Sunday.
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If you’ve forgotten what a running game looks like, here’s a grainy Ryan Torain highlight reel.
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I hate P.O.D. as much as the next guy, but I’ll admit it, there is something cool about hearing “BOOM!” as Ryan Torain explodes through the line. Go Devils!
Say what you will about the tenants of P.O.D., Tobias — but at least it’s an ethos, errrr, good game music. And they never say the N word, so they got that going for them.
Oh, and for Torain, I mentioned this on the 19 Devils in the NFL post, but how about Torain dropping his shoulder and plowing through a guy for a first on the fourth-and-short against Wazzu last year? Gotta love college football!