Sun Devils’ Persistent Averageness a Puzzle to Experts

Kim Hastings Humor

The Arizona State Sun Devils host the Ducks tomorrow with little on the line for ASU. They have already secured a record which may remain unbroken forever. The Sun Devils have lost at least three games every year since at least 1998.

The record probably goes back further than ’98.

I got bored by '98.

I got bored by ’98.

FishDuck.com/psychologistsinoursparetime asked me to examine the persistent mediocrity extant in Tempe. Why aren’t the Sun Devils conference contenders every year and conference champs every decade or so?

It has puzzled minds greater than ours...if any.

It has puzzled minds greater than ours … if any.

I mean, the Greater Phoenix Area has some things going for it that sweaty fever dreams at UW can only imagine.

Her name is Blair O"Neal and she isn't a cheerleader for ASU, sportsfans. She's a golfer!

Her name is Blair O’Neal and she isn’t a cheerleader for ASU, sports fans. She’s a golfer!

Which only makes it more of a wonder that the Sun Devils haven’t had more success. I had to broaden my search. Why aren’t the Sun Devils more successful?

I thought maybe it was high academic standards keeping ASU from the upper reaches of the conference. Goodness knows, we at Oregon understand such obstacles.

Math 101 is just one reason Oregon is known as the Harvard of the West.

Math 105 is just one reason Oregon is known as the Harvard of the West.

So I searched the public records to find a typical class load for an ASU football player.

But excessive academic rigor didn't seem to be the problem either.

Excessive academic rigor didn’t seem to be the problem either.

I was afraid I would have to go back to the grand poobahs at FishDuck.com and tell them I didn’t have an answer. But I decided to look one more place.

I found my answer in a little-known joint study conducted by psychoanalysts Joseph Adler, Erik Erikson and B.F. Skinner at Oxford University in 1931. It looked deep into the soul of mediocrity and put a name to the malady. Arizona State University football suffers from …

Rileyism

… Rileyism.

Go Ducks! Dehorn the Devils!

Top photo by yeahthatskosher.com

New 2024 FishDuck Publishing Schedule….

During the off-season the FishDuck.com publishing schedule will consist of articles on Mondays and Tuesdays. Do keep checking as new articles could be published during the week when a writer has something to say.

In mid-August of 2024, we will go back to the seven-days-a-week of articles during the football season as we did in the football season of 2023.

The Our Beloved Ducks Forum (OBD) is where we we discuss the article above and many more topics, as it is so much easier in a message board format over there.  At the free OBD forum we will be posting Oregon Sports article links, the daily Press Releases from the Athletic Department and the news coming out every day.

Our 33 rules at the free OBD Forum can be summarized to this: 1) be polite and respectful, 2) do not tell anyone what to think, feel or write, and 3) no reference of any kind to politics. Easy-peasy!

OBD Forum members….we got your back.  No Trolls Allowed!