Ryan Bass Already Upset Mike Stoops. Will the Beavers be Next?
Rudy Carpenter says he’s got some magic. Mike Stoops says he picked a junior college program over his own. So who is Ryan Bass?
If you checked out of Sun Devil Stadium early on Saturday, you missed true freshman Ryan Bass making his case for more playing time by rushing for 56 yards on 10 carries. That’s not bad, considering that Arizona State is averaging just 87 rushing yards per game to rank near the bottom of Division I.
His case was convincing enough to lead Dennis Erickson to say he plans to give Bass more touches this weekend against Oregon State. So who is Ryan Bass?
Bass is a 5-foot-10 speedster from Corona, Calif., who rushed for 2,608 yards as a senior to earn Parade All-America status and has done enough in practice to inspire Rudy Carpenter to say he has “a little bit of magic to him.”
Bass originally committed to play at Arizona before realizing that the Wildcats haven’t done anything in football since 1998 and switching over to ASU along with Arizonans Jarrell Barbour and Gerrell Robinson. Barbour and Bass were apparently the intended targets of Stoops’ infamous comments about ASU being a junior college.
What we like about Bass is that he doesn’t have a broken hand and that he appears to be a hard worker in both the classroom and the weightroom. He worked diligently to meet the NCAA’s academic admission requirements and he claims he’s added 20 pounds to his 185-pound frame since arriving in Tempe.
The Sun Devils are so reliant on youngsters – 10 true freshmen have started – that Erickson has compared coaching them to being in a nursery school. Some of the freshmen including defensive tackle Lawrence Guy have been outstanding.
On Saturday, we’ll see if Bass will be one of them.
***
Here’s the list of true freshmen who’s played for the Sun Devils this season.
| Ryan Bass | RB | Corona, CA |
| Clint Floyd | S | Los Angeles, CA |
| Lawrence Guy | DE | Las Vegas, NV |
| Josh Jordan | CB | Las Vegas, NV |
| Shelly Lyons | LB | Corona, CA |
| Brandon Magee | LB | Corona, CA |
| Gerell Robinson | WR | Chandler, AZ |
| Andrew Sampson | C | Aurora, CO |
| Zach Schlink | OL | Peoria, AZ |
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Its a good thing someone on the team has magic, Rudy certainly doesn’t.
At this point, 4 yards a carry would qualify as magic.
is it too late for Ryan Torain to apply for another year of eligibility?
Where would we be right now if we had an OL paving the way for any back to average 4 yards per carry? Obviously we’d have the win over UNLV. How about an upset somewhere? .500, anyone?
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