ASU Football: Sun Devils show fight, but Bryce Love’s big day leads Stanford to victory

ASU football battled all game, but Stanford running back Bryce Love‘s record-breaking day was enough to spoil Arizona State’s comeback effort, losing 34-24.

ASU football came out of the Stanford Stadium tunnel Saturday afternoon greeted by a half-empty stadium as it jogged over to the East sideline – standing across from another unranked opponent in the Cardinal.

Quite the far cry from the meeting the two teams had four years ago at the Pac-12 Championship Game in Tempe.

But despite the time that’s passed, the overhauled rosters or the incongruity of the setting, the two games followed the same tune early.

On the game’s first drive, Stanford’s running back busted out a long run, but instead of then Cardinal back Tyler Gaffney going 69 yards, current running back Bryce Love, the nation’s leading rusher, found the end zone from 61 yards out in the 34-24 Cardinal victory.

ASU answered as they did in 2013, but instead of tying the game with a touchdown, the Devils settled for a field goal.

In both cases, they never came closer.

In that Pac-12 Championship Game, in which ASU lost 38-14, Stanford rushed for a combined 240 yards. On Saturday, Love himself gained a school-record 301 yards on 25 carries for 3 touchdowns.

Those 3 touchdowns weren’t just some quick reach over the goal line scores from a few yards out; they required multiple broken tackles and stiff arms on ASU defenders.

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After the 61 yards score, his next two touchdowns from 43 and 59 yards out, respectively, were seemingly just déjà vu.

“You just have to tackle the guy, the guy is really hard to tackle,” ASU head coach Todd Graham said. “Every play that he broke we had someone there, unblocked, and couldn’t tackle him.

“So you have to give him a lot of credit, he’s very, very good.”

Coming into this game, the Sun Devils had watched film on Love. They knew what he was capable of – heck; they saw earlier this year against Rashaad Penny and San Diego State how a good ground game could beat them.

An early contain of Love would have put all of the pressure and all of the responsibility on Stanford’s redshirt freshman quarterback K.J. Costello, who before Saturday had never made a start.

But, with all of the attention focused on Love, the redshirt freshman did his job. Costello finished the game going 15-24 for 177 yards passing with one touchdown.

In 2013, hope was lost early. On its first four possessions of the game, on the road, Stanford scored four touchdowns – rose pedals that were held high at the beginning of the game started to hit the floor.

With nothing more then maybe a foam finger Saturday in Palo Alto, the same circumstance looked to be unfolding for ASU fans.

Already 1-1 on drives ending in a touchdowns, Costello completed a pass inside the ASU 10. But just as Dalton Schultz neared the end zone, ASU defensive back J’Marcus Rhodes forced, and recovered a fumble.

From 2013 to 2017, from the Pac-12 Championship Game to a run of the mill game in September, things are obviously not the same.

But if one thing did change from that December game four years ago to Saturday, ASU will take the most pride in its response to adversity.

After being down 28-14 at halftime in 2013, the Devils didn’t score again. Saturday however, two second-quarter touchdowns by Stanford were followed by touchdowns from the Sun Devils.

The difference though in keeping the deficit at four entering halftime was ASU quarterback Manny Wilkins’ first interception of the year.

“[I] just got to put us in a better situation to score points,” Wilkins said. “Obviously I didn’t play my best game. I didn’t give us an opportunity to win this football game.”

His second of the year, which came with ASU down 31-17 in the third quarter, just added to the missed opportunities that ASU had.

“I think what slowed us down or what hurt us is obviously we’re moving the ball right at almost midfield then we throw an interception on first down,” Graham said.

“But our guys have a lot of resolve. I’m proud of how our guys played. They battled.”

Arizona State dropped its record to 2-3 and 1-1 in Pac-12 play and won’t play their next game for two weeks when they host Washington.

Next: ASU Football: What happened to the rushing attack?

This game wasn’t for the chance to go to the Rose Bowl or anything special like that. But in two games that started the same and ultimately ended with the same result, the Devils’ response in between shows change in the right direction.