Arizona State Dominates to Move onto the Big 12 Championship Game
Arizona State football continues to surprise just about everybody, but themselves. The Sun Devils went to Tucson to take on their rival the Arizona Wildcats on Saturday afternoon.
Fortunately for the Sun Devils it was not much of a contest. Once the clock had run out in the fourth quarter ASU walked off the field with a convincing 49-7 win.
The closest this game got was before kickoff. It wasn’t a contest once the football was flying through the air at Arizona Stadium.
This was about as dominating of a performance as you could have in this long rivalry. Arizona State finished with 643 total yards of offense. Sun Devil quarterback, Sam Leavitt, finished with 291 yards, three touchdowns, and completed 17-22 passes for a 77% completion percentage. Leavitt was as efficient of a quarterback as you could be on Saturday afternoon. Cam Skattebo was also a huge factor in the game. Skattebo finished with 185 total offensive yards. 177 of those yards came on the ground and it was quite obvious that Arizona had no answer for anything that the Sun Devils threw at them on the offensive side of the ball.
The game was out of control by the end of the first quarter. By halftime it was 35-0 and the Sun Devils had erased any doubt who was going to win this game. It was just a matter of making sure that the ASU defense did not let the Arizona offense get any room to breath. Which the Sun Devil defense did.
The only downside to this dominate win was that Arizona State lost one of their best young players in Jordyn Tyson who went down with a broken collarbone in the second half. Jordyn could be seen being consoled by his mother once he came out of the locker room with a sling across his left shoulder. Tyson, who was having a breakout season for the Sun Devils will be missed as the Big 12 Championship Game looms next for Arizona State.
Now, the focus for the Sun Devils goes to Iowa State and the Big 12 Championship Game in Dallas, Texas this Saturday.
How long does this glass slipper stay on for the Sun Devils?
As long as Arizona State keeps playing the way they have been this whole season they will be able to make believers out of non-believers.
People have to remember that this Sun Devil team was picked to finish dead last in the Big 12. Now, they are playing for the conference championship in their first year of existence in the Big 12. Shows how much people knew of what head coach Kenny Dillingham was building during the spring practices and in the summer practices before the season started.
What happened to change the projection of this Arizona State team?
Coach Dillingham has said consistently, “We have guys that just love to play football. This team has dogs on it and they have a phenomenal way of blocking out all the noise that comes with being a college football player.”
You can see it on the field with this team. The players play for each other, they don’t let one bad play affect the next play, and they are absolutely letting themselves be coached by the coaching staff.
When you have this type of cohesion and chemistry on a team like the Sun Devils it can create something special. The only thing I heard out of players after the win over Arizona was “I love my teammates. I love this team.”
If ASU wins the Big 12 Championship on Saturday they will more than likely get an at-large bid to the College Football Playoff. You put a team that has this type of momentum heading into a 12 team tournament you want to avoid them like the plague.
Arizona State will be tough out if they get to the College Football Playoff and to think otherwise will be just adding to fuel to a very hot fire burning already.
Michael J. Wilson-The Daily Waiver
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