Arizona State's football program is a desert mirage. From a distance, the allure is breathtaking.

Up close, it all begins to fade.

Take the common perception of ASU, the myth of the sleeping giant. Look at the school through the eyes of a wooed recruit. If the place is so great, ask yourself why most of the state's best talent opts for a different experience.

Flip the prism, and you'll find many of ASU's better assets actually are liabilities.

Great weather? Absolutely. So nice that spectator sports are a diversion, and not a way of life around here. That means the college team has to be good to draw a crowd. In great college towns, the football program only has to be.

That distinction makes it hard to recruit marquee players during the bad times, when there's zero electricity in a half-empty stadium.

Close to a major metropolis? ASU has an urban feel. Trains knife through the streets, whisking past parking garages. The campus tour is to find no campus at all. It's not for everybody.

Meanwhile, some fans have complained that the program has a dearth of collegial traditions, the kind that connect a football team with the community. And, sorry, Sparky doing push-ups isn't good enough.

Major-league market? Yes, but that means ASU is not the center of our universe, not the only game in town. Making matters worse, there's not a lot of money to go around in this "big-league" sports town.

According to a recent study of 85 different regions, the abundance of sporting options has made the Valley the eighth-most overextended market in the United States.

Great scene? ASU's reputation as a great party school often is warranted and celebrated, appealing to exactly the kind of athletes who won't win championships.

Great uniforms? Well, those do help.

That's the cold reality, the kind that blends with two Rose Bowl appearances in the past 24 years. Yet there's an assumption that ASU should be markedly better, and that assumption is causing much friction. The anger of ASU fans in 2011 is so profound that school President Michael Crow just issued a statement on the coaching search.

His first words were, "Because of the extraordinary interest in Arizona State University's search for a new football coach ... "

Translation: "Because fans are out of control and so is my email account ... "

The anger exists because Dennis Erickson came so close, in his first year and his last. Please don't blame him one bit for the lack of discipline that led to the late-season collapse. He did what he does. At Miami and Oregon State, Erickson simply recruited enough great athletes to overcome his culture of leniency. He couldn't do it here because he didn't get enough players, mostly for all of the aforementioned reasons.

The anger exists because Vice President for Athletics Lisa Love can't connect with sports fans. She talks in academia speak, using moderate tones and $50 words. Plus, she has been schooled by her new colleague in Tucson, who fired Mike Stoops in mid-season (getting a jump on the competition) and had Rich Rodriguez in his back pocket by the end of the Territorial Cup, making the rivalry game a win-win proposition.

Maybe for his final trick, Greg Byrne can return to his alma mater and try to take down the powerhouse he just built in Tucson.

Mostly, the anger is palpable because ASU fans expect the unrealistic. Old-timers resist new logos and pine for the good old days under Frank Kush, forgetful that it was a different time and a different country back then. The younger generation is impatient and half-vested. A school official sagely says ASU leads the nation in fans who scream their dissatisfaction from the couch.

Together, they are an impetuous lot that loved the idea of Kevin Sumlin until they actually saw his team play. When Sumlin's defense was shredded in the Conference USA title game, many jumped off that bandwagon so fast you could hear ankles snapping.

That's the essence of Crow's statement. He's reminding everyone that this short-term, reflexive mind-set is no way to build a football program or for the program to live .

We all agree: The Sun Devils need a charismatic young coach who can recruit with the big boys, creating a winning brand that attracts the fickle masses, helping ASU finally turn the corner, overcome its recruiting disadvantages and make an occasional run at the Rose Bowl.

Until then, let's forget about the sleeping giant, the one that doesn't exist.

Reach Bickley at dan.bickley@arizona

republic.com or 602-444-8253. Follow him at twitter.com/danbickley. Listen to "Bickley and MJ" weekdays from 2-6 p.m. on KGME-AM (910).