ESPN’s Football Power Index (FPI) has Arizona State ranked as the 10th-best team in the Pac-12 entering the 2023 season.

The predictive model has ASU slotted at No. 64 nationally. It gives Kenny Dillingham’s squad just a 38.4% chance of reaching six wins on the year, and it has the record pegged at 5-7.

After a 3-9 season last fall, Dillingham takes over a major rebuilding project in Tempe. He hit the transfer portal hard to fill in the roster, has spent all offseason working to establish a winning culture, and recently named true freshman quarterback Jaden Rashada the starter for Week 1.

It’s a new era at Arizona State.

But all the change makes it a bit hard for a model like FPI to truly evaluate the Sun Devils. Predictive models are still trying to work out how to best factor transfer production into a new team, and culture, while hugely important to a team’s success, is hard to quantify.

With that in mind, FPI would favor the Sun Devils in just five of their 12 games this fall. Here’s how the model views the schedule:

  • Aug. 31 vs. Southern Utah — 96.0% chance of winning
  • Sept. 9 vs. Oklahoma State — 38.3%
  • Sept. 16 vs. Fresno State — 61.5%
  • Sept. 23 vs. USC — 12.0%
  • Sept. 30 at Cal — 30.5%
  • Oct. 7 vs. Colorado — 73.3%
  • Oct. 21 at Washington — 17.7%
  • Oct. 28 vs. Washington State —  57.1%
  • Nov. 4 at Utah — 11.4%
  • Nov. 11 at UCLA — 25.1%
  • Nov. 18 vs. Oregon — 21.7%
  • Nov. 25 vs. Arizona — 51.9%