Last season, it took a trip to Tempe, Arizona for the Cardinal to finally solve their road woes on the offensive side of the ball in a 38-14 blowout of the Sun Devils in the Pac-12 Championship Game.

So when the No. 23 Cardinal (4-2, 2-1 Pac-12) make their way back down to Sun Devil Stadium for a second consecutive road matchup against No. 17 Arizona State (4-1, 2-1), Stanford will hope that a foray into the desert will once again be what the doctor ordered in order to right the ship for its talented yet oft-ineffective offense.

“We have so much turnover [since last year], especially on the offensive line, only a couple of guys played in that game. [We have] new running backs, new starters,” said head coach David Shaw. “And defensively we have pretty significant turnover there also. It’s hard to say that there is going to be much carryover at all [from last year]. ”

The righting of the ship began in last Friday’s victory over the Washington State Cougars, sure, but the biggest question that Stanford will need to answer moving into the matchup against the Sun Devils will be if the offensive success was just a flash in the pan against a weak Washington State defensive front or whether it was actually a sign of improvement to come.

If the offense needs to build momentum, this might be the perfect matchup in which to do so. On paper, at least, the matchup between the Cardinal offense and the Sun Devil defense points to a firm advantage for Stanford, with Arizona State’s defense ranking 91st in the country in scoring defense, 103rd in rush defense and 73rd in pass defense.

That means that this week’s rendition of the Stanford offense should, in theory, look more like the unit that took the field against Washington State last week than the unit that scored 10 points in nine trips deep into USC territory in the loss to the Trojans.

The major key to ensuring offensive success for the Cardinal will be getting their running game up and running early on, as they did with great success last week against the Cougars with runs to the outside that took advantage of Stanford’s standout junior tackles Andrus Peat and Kyle Murphy, as well as mismatches between Cardinal wide receivers and the cornerbacks that they were blocking.

Against a defense that lost Will Sutton, Chris Young and Carl Bradford since the teams last played — the trio combined for 50 tackles for loss last season — and has been allowing 207.2 yards on the ground per game, Stanford’s stable of backs should have less trouble finding holes behind an offensive line which has seen its blocking improve throughout the season despite the nagging penalties that have killed drives all year.

And if the run game improves, the passing lanes should open up, and senior quarterback Kevin Hogan will just need to avoid locking onto Ty Montgomery and in doing so spread the ball around like he did last week — when he found 12 different targets for completions — in order for the Cardinal to move the ball.

Despite the porous defense, Arizona State has still been able to find consistent success through the season by riding its powerful offense to victories.

Even though senior quarterback Taylor Kelly has been out with an injury for the last two weeks, the Sun Devil attack hasn’t slowed down one bit, with backup quarterback Mike Bercovici having passed for 998 yards and eight touchdowns in games against UCLA and USC in Kelly’s absence.

“This kid [Bercovici] can throw it and he’s got that word that’s not used very much nowadays, but ‘moxie’,” Shaw said. “He’s a tough sucker and he’ll get out of the pocket, he’ll stay in the pocket. You see the energy and fire that he plays with.”

Even though Kelly is expected to play on Saturday, because of Bercovici’s success and the option-based system that Arizona State runs, head coach David Shaw doesn’t believe it will matter which quarterback is running the offense for the Sun Devils.

“I don’t think that we’re going to waste too much time thinking about it [the quarterback situation] at all. They’ve got a very good scheme, they’ve got a big physical wideout that’s a mismatch against everybody that they play. They’ve got D.J. Foster who’s an outstanding….receiver, running back,” Shaw said. “So for us, it’s about us being sound and not really worried about who the quarterback is. Whoever it is we better contain him because if he gets out of the pocket it can hurt you. Taylor Kelly is a runner but both of those guys are good passers.”

But for as good as the Arizona State offense has been, it will face its stiffest challenge of the season against a Stanford defense that is at or near the top in the nation in every major metric and is coming fresh off of a shutdown of Connor Halliday and the Washington State Air Raid offense.

Although Stanford hasn’t faced a read-option, fact-paced attack like that of Arizona State so far this year, the Cardinal have had a history of success against the Sun Devils’ brand of attack — just look at the two meetings between the teams last year, in which (aside from a 21-point fourth quarter rally in the first matchup with the game already decided) Stanford held the Sun Devils to a combined 21 points through seven quarters of play.

Along with Kelly, other familiar faces will lead the charge for the Sun Devils as they aim to crack the nation’s top scoring defense. Running back D.J. Foster leads the charge on the ground and has already amassed 553 rushing yards with 7.6 yards per rush on average, while wide receiver Jaelen Strong has already racked up 614 receiving yards and five touchdowns this season.

One weakness the Sun Devils may be able to exploit on Stanford’s defense is the lack of depth on the defensive line after junior Luke Kaumatule was switched to outside linebacker and junior Aziz Shittu suffered a serious non-contact injury during practice on Thursday. Given the pace of the Sun Devils’ offense, defensive depth is as important as ever and could lead to Arizona State being able to get a solid running game of its own going.

The Sun Devils will look to stick a fork in the Cardinal’s playoff hopes for good when the teams collide in Tempe on Saturday, with a planned 7:30 p.m. kickoff. The game will be broadcast on ESPN.

Contact Do-Hyoung Park at dpark027 ‘at’ stanford.edu.