We're looking at the toughest three-game stretches for each Pac-12 team. Today, we'll keep things going with Arizona State.

ARIZONA STATE

Stretch:

Oct. 17 at Utah

Oct. 29 vs Oregon

Nov. 7 at Washington State

Why it's tough: The schedule actually sets up relatively well for the Sun Devils in that there isn’t three consecutive games where you might think, “Hey, they could go 0-3 here.” Part of that is because ASU is just good, and part of that is because the traditional heavy hitters are distributed fairly evenly across the schedule. Even taking into account the extra time between games, trips to Salt Lake City and Pullman aren’t the most convenient road games in the conference and with Oregon sitting in between there could be some concern about looking past Utah or a hangover effect headed to WSU.

The season opener against Texas A&M and back-to-back games against USC and UCLA to open conference play stand as good opportunities for the Sun Devils to continue their ascent in terms of national perception, but a win against Oregon would -- at least looking at things from a preseason perspective -- serve as the best win in Todd Graham’s tenure. ASU missed Oregon the last two seasons and hasn’t beaten the Ducks since 2004, when Graham was in his second year as the defensive coordinator at Tulsa.

Utah should again be in the mix in the Pac-12 South, which makes that a key game and WSU’s offense -- even if the team doesn’t take a significant step forward -- always makes the Cougars an upset threat.

Odds for success: After back-to-back 10-win seasons, ASU has elevated expectations. And what that means in this case is that anything other than a 3-0 record in this stretch would have to go down as a disappointment for Sun Devils fans. They’ll clearly expect to win against Utah (which will also probably expect to win) and WSU, but until ASU starts picking up wins against Oregon or teams of that ilk, ASU will essentially be treading water. Not that treading water is bad here; plenty of teams in the country would be thrilled with 20 wins over a two-year span and maintaining that level is an impressive feat.