ASU Football: Sun Devils Fail to Earn a Bowl Berth

ASU Football was run over 56-35 in the Territorial Cup, the team’s sixth straight loss. ASU will finish below .500 for the first time under Todd Graham.

In a must-win game to qualify for a postseason bowl, the Arizona State football team was trampled 56-35 by the formerly winless Arizona Wildcats.

Playing in the 90th Territorial Cup, a rivalry series that started in 1899, the 3-9 Wildcats romped while only attempting eight passes. The team relied heavily on a potent rushing attack that picked up 511 yards on the ground, complemented by seven rushing touchdowns.

“I wanna give credit to Arizona they did a great job tonight, they deserve the credit. As for us, that was the worst performance we’ve had since we’ve been here. That was embarrassing,” head coach Todd Graham said.

Just three plays into the game, sophomore quarterback Brandon Dawkins set the tone with a 71-yard touchdown run up the middle, right through the heart of the ASU defense. Dawkins finished with 183 yards on 12 carries and a pair of touchdowns.

Tackling was again an issue for ASU who gave up an average of 10.6 yards per carry, getting outplayed at the line of scrimmage as tremendous holes were opened while linemen got into the backfield on occassion but were unable to bring down the ball carrier.

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In addition to Dawkins, running back Zach Green and wide receiver Samajie Grant both reached the 100-yard mark against ASU with Green tallying 126 yards and Grant gaining 176 yards.

“No excuses, but that was very, very difficult to watch. We just absolutely didn’t show up at all defensively,” Graham said.

Defensively, the lone bright spot for the Sun Devils came on a Dawkins fumble returned 42 yards for a Koron Crump touchdown in the first quarter.

Each of Arizona’s first four scoring drives were under two minutes, keeping the ASU offense on the field for over 35 minutes with an ineffective Manny Wilkins under center. Still visibly bothered by lingering injuries, Wilkins could not escape the pocket and resorted to throwing a lot of check down and screen passes.

Wilkins completed his first rivalry game with 372 passing yards and three touchdowns to go along with 79 rushing yards on 23 carries. The redshirt sophomore also set a career-high for completions with 43.

In his final career collegiate game, wide receiver Frederick Gammage had a career night, nearly doubling his season statistics with 116 yards on 12 catches with a touchdown. The former walk-on played a pivotal role in the offense against Arizona.

After falling behind 28-7, ASU had a brief surge to cut the deficit to 28-21 and later 35-28 before Arizona pulled away for good. The Sun Devils had a third and short opportunity deep in Wildcat territory to make the game interesting but senior linebacker Paul Magloire came away with a big solo tackle on Wilkins before the defense forced a turnover on downs.

“There was never a moment in the game where I felt that we couldn’t come back and win,” wide receiver Frederick Gammage said. “I felt like we had the momentum and started clicking a little bit but it just didn’t roll our way.”

With the Arizona victory, this is now the fourth consecutive year that the Territorial Cup winner has been the home team and snaps a three-year streak of a team going winless in Pac-12 play after California, Colorado and Oregon State managed to do so in 2013, 2014 and 2015 respectively.

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At 5-7, Arizona State is likely to miss out on a bowl game for the first time since 2010, the team’s first time not playing a bowl game under Todd Graham. Once 5-1 and in the thick of the division race, injuries derailed a promising season culminating with the Territorial Cup being reclaimed by the Arizona Wildcats.

“We let our university down, we let our program down,” said Graham.

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