Like it or not, Arizona State’s “hybrid attacking defense” is here to stay.

ASU coach Todd Graham, following Saturday’s collapse against Cal, defended his defensive scheme despite letting a 24-3 lead slip away in a 48-46 loss.

The team's defensive philosophy is to blitz like crazy and then sort out the rest. In the past, it’s worked quite well. The Sun Devils frequently lead the nation in blitz percentage, and as a result have high marks for team sacks, tackles for loss and turnovers.

However, the Sun Devils have yielded 32.7 points per game in 2015, the highest average of the Graham era. And despite leading the Pac-12 with 44 sacks, they've only broken even on turnovers.

"We would get beat 100-0 if we didn't pressure," Graham said, via Doug Haller of the Arizona Republic. "That's who we are and what we're about is pressuring. As long as I'm the head coach, that's the way it's going to be. They want somebody not to blitz, get somebody else. There's no doubt in my mind that what we do is the best thing we can do for our guys."

Let's keep in mind, too, that if Graham had gone into a prevent defense, he'd be answering questions about why he went away from his blitzing scheme.

As Haller points out, personnel has played a role. The Sun Devils had to replace first-round draft pick Damarious Randall, and they lost safeties Armand Perry and Jordan Simone to injuries.

The Sun Devils are waiting to find out their bowl destination, which may or may not be one of the Pac-12’s seven contracted bowls. With 10 bowl-eligible teams in the league, an at-large bid from a bowl outside of the conference is possible.

"Our expectations this year were obviously not met," Graham said. "We hit one of them and that was beating Arizona. Other than that we fell short, but I'm proud of these seniors. I'm proud of what they're about. I'm proud of what they're doing academically. I'm proud of where we're at as a program."