ESPN College Football

Posted by ESPN.com's Ted Miller

TEMPE, Ariz. -- Arizona State coach Dennis Erickson and his quarterback Rudy Carpenter shared a horrible nightmare Saturday evening and that led to a sleepless night for both.

"I haven't slept for two days," said Erickson just before a bleary-eyed Carpenter duplicated his statement a few moments later.

That's what happens when a 15th-ranked team loses at home in overtime to woeful UNLV, a 23-point underdog, and thereby quashes the buzz surrounding a formerly marquee nonconference showdown with No. 3 Georgia.

There's rarely much chummy commiserating between the Sun Devils and rival Arizona down south in Tucson, but it's more than likely Wildcats coach Mike Stoops could empathize.

His team went to New Mexico favored to win and start the season 3-0, halfway to the win requirement to get the Wildcats bowl-eligible and likely turn the AC on Stoops' coaching hot seat.

Instead, they looked sloppy, got pushed around up front and lost to the previously winless Lobos for a second consecutive year.

Stoops was clearly perturbed by the notion that New Mexico appeared to play with more focused desperation.

"We have 10 years of desperation. I don't want to hear about desperation," he told reporters after the game, referring to the program's bowl-less decade.

"Who is more desperate than us? That is what I told our players."

Carpenter talked to his mom for a while after the game and then, after pointlessly tossing and turning, went for an early a.m. swim, then a sunrise bagel.

The senior, who's started 34 consecutive games, felt responsible for the loss. Not so much with his play (which was OK -- 13 for 23, 242 yards, 2 TDs, a pick -- though not up to his usual standards of uncanny accuracy), but with a sense that the Sun Devils lacked urgency during Thursday's practice last week.

"That's what I thought about all Saturday night," Carpenter said. "Just personally, this is my last opportunity. Being a leader on this team, I think that's where I didn't do my job by being more vocal."

Fortunes can change quickly in college football, though, up or down.

Arizona is headed to UCLA on Saturday. The Bruins might be the Pac-10's most embarrassed team -- which is saying something after Black Saturday -- after losing 59-zip at BYU.

The Wildcats beat the Bruins a year ago, and starting the conference slate 1-0 could at least partially erase the humiliation of being slapped by a middling Mountain West team.

The Sun Devils task is a bit more arduous. The Bulldogs were the preseason's No. 1 team but have fallen to No. 3 while futzing around -- but winning -- against inferior teams.

They probably want to make a statement with their first trip to the West Coast since 1960.

Carpenter, of course, sees the test Georgia represents. And a failing grade in that test, such as an ugly defeat, could suddenly mute the enthusiasm that Erickson's arrival generated during a 10-win season in 2007.

That's because, even if the Pac-10 is as down as it looks after this past weekend, the Sun Devils start a rugged conference gauntlet after the Bulldogs visit: at California, at USC and a visit from Oregon.

Flop against the Dawgs and lose confidence, and the Sun Devils could easily tailspin into a five-game losing streak.

"If you look at the stretch of games we have after Georgia, I kind of feel like we have to do something this weekend," Carpenter said.

It's fair to say there's desperation in the desert this week for both programs.