Tomorrow, starting quarterback T.C. Ostrander will drop back to pass. Starting fullback Emeka Nnoli and right tackle Chris Marinelli will lay key blocks as Ostrander searches downfield trying to find one of his two starting receivers, Austin Yancy and Kelton Lynn.

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Shams Shaikh

Senior cornerback Tim Sims brings down Arizona’s Xavier Smith in last weekend’s 20-7 loss to the Wildcats. The Cardinal head to Arizona State still looking for their first win of the season.

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Joseph Bergen

Arizona State coach Dirk Koetter brought a vertical passing game with him to Tempe when he took the job in 2001. In this play, the Sun Devils cut USC’s lead to 7 by putting three men in the pattern to the left side. The backfield receivers cross and go upfield while tight end Zach Miller (86) runs a hook route at the goal line. Quarterback Rudy Carpenter (12) picks out the open man. One of ASU’s most productive and versatile players, Miller makes the catch at the 1 and falls over the Trojan cornerback for the touchdown.

Sound strange? Of those five players, none were expected to see substantial time on the field this season, much less play at all. Yet tomorrow, when the Cardinal (0-7, 0-4 Pac-10) take on Arizona State (3-3, 0-3) at Sun Devil Stadium, each will appear in the starting lineup.

“I haven’t ever been through a season like this and I’m hoping this is my penance, so we don’t have to do it again,” Stanford coach Walt Harris said. “Not just me but all our coaches, all our players and all the people who support us loyally. Nobody wants to see anyone get hurt, and the injuries leave us with a lot of work to do.”

After losing Trent Edwards for the season with a broken foot in last Saturday’s 20-7 loss to Arizona, the Cardinal are left without six offensive starters — center Tim Mattran, fullback Nick Frank, wide receivers Mark Bradford and Evan Moore, offensive tackle Jon Cochran and Edwards.

“We have 28 guys that have never played [in college] before that are now playing, so there’s a learning curve,” Harris said. “At a lot of places people don’t see the field for a long, long, long time until they have gone through the hard road of seeing how high the expectations are of execution and have fallen short of the mark. That’s the meat and potatoes of your football team — they don’t usually play until they’re redshirt juniors and now they’ve been through four years.”

Ostrander will get the start in Edwards’ place, his first starting nod since Big Game in 2004. The redshirt junior entered last Saturday’s game with just over six minutes left in the first quarter after Edwards injured his foot during the Cardinal’s first offensive drive. Ostrander finished the game 8-of-13 passing with 58 yards, while leading Stanford to its worst offensive game in the history of the program.

It will be the third start of Ostrander’s career at Stanford. In his two previous starts under center, the Atherton, Calif.-native led the Cardinal to a 0-2 record with losses to Oregon State and California in 2004.

“I’m not going to try to come in and replace [Edwards],” Ostrander said. “He’s a tough guy to replace. There’s a lot of things I have to do better to be successful, so I just need to focus on doing those things and improving. That’s really all I can do at this point.”

Ostrander will be backed up by sophomore Tavita Prichard, who has never taken a college snap. Prichard spent the three weeks prior to Edwards’ injury practicing at wide receiver.

The Sun Devils have also experienced their fair share of quarterbacking issues this season. Prior to the opening game, Arizona State coach Dirk Koetter named senior Sam Keller the starter, before changing his mind days later, appointing sophomore Rudy Carpenter as the number one option under center. As a result of the demotion, Keller transferred to Nebraska, leaving the Sun Devils with little depth.

Since the controversy, Carpenter has struggled to find the same success that he managed as a part-time starter in 2005. After throwing for 17 touchdowns and just two interceptions last season, Carpenter has already been picked off nine times this year with 12 touchdowns.

In last season’s game against Stanford, Carpenter nearly brought the Sun Devils back from a 45-7 deficit. After entering the game after halftime, the then-freshman threw for 304 yards and three touchdowns to pull Arizona State to within ten.

“I’ll always remember that game, because it was my first opportunity to play in a college football game in which something was still on the line,” Carpenter said. “The previous games I played in, the game was already over. In that Stanford game we just ran out of time.”

Carpenter also ran out of time last week in a 28-21 loss to No. 3 USC. Trailing 21-0 early, the sophomore pulled the Sun Devils back into the game at 21-21 with less than five minutes remaining. But, USC scored a touchdown with just over four minutes remaining and Carpenter couldn’t put together one final drive.

“I always talk to the team before the game, and I told them that win, lose or draw I wanted USC to walk out thinking that ASU is a pretty good team that we don’t want to play again because they gave us their best shot,” Carpenter said. “USC came out fast, they gave us their best shot and we had to weather the storm a little bit. Once we did that, we settled down and came back. The only thing is that it’s hard to come back from being down 21 points. That’s something that we need to prevent by not making stupid mistakes and penalties.”

The Sun Devils started the season ranked in the top 25 and won their first three games of the season. But once the Pac-10 season rolled around, the Sun Devils found the road more challenging, starting the conference season with losses to Oregon, Cal and USC.

“Even though Stanford is winless this year, we are winless in the Pac-10, so we need to be playing every game like it’s the Super Bowl,” Carpenter said. “It would be good to finish 9-3, but we have to get to 4-3 first. Every Pac-10 team is good this year, so it’s going to be tough no matter how you look at it.”

Kickoff is slated for 12:30 pm tomorrow in Tempe, Ariz.