ASU Football: Tautalatasi interception sparks offense, third down dominance

Through the first quarter and a half, ASU football couldn’t stop Michigan State on third down. A heads-up play in the endzone changed the course of the game.

Strange things happen at blackout games. The night eclipses the light, fans merge to a unit of chaos and suddenly, a football game becomes an eerie spectacle.

In a game with several of these turns, perhaps nothing was more frightening than the disappearance of Arizona State’s offense. After running up the scoreboard against UTSA, the Sun Devils had been blackballed through the first quarter and a half against Michigan State.

In order to solve the mystery, the ASU defense needed some light. Brian Lewerke and the Spartan offense were rolling, and they were on the cusp of building a 10-point lead before halftime. The blackout effect was in reverse.

With seven minutes to go, the Spartans were on ASU’s 8-yard line. On second and goal, Lewerke rolled to the left side of the field, looking for a throw that had been open the past two drives. He saw Matt Dotson, but overshot the tips of his fingers.

Two tips of the football later, it ended up in Dasmond Tautalatasi’s hands. He took his first career interception out of the endzone, and the Sun Devils had found the glare they needed.

“It was huge,” said coach Herm Edwards. “Red zone defense– that takes points off the boards. They get that touchdown, now it’s really a different football game.”

Up to that point, the defense hadn’t found a way to keep the Spartans off the field. Lewerke and the offense were 3-for-5 on third down attempts, extending drives that began in their own endzone and toward the middle of the field.

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But something changed after Tautalatasi’s interception. Yes, it helped the offense get an extra drive, but it shifted the defense to another gear. The Spartans finished 1-for-7 on third down for the rest of the game, allowing the ASU offense a chance to find their footing.

“Our defense has been practicing extremely hard,” N’Keal Harry said. “Every time the ball’s in the air, they all swarm the ball, and you can really see that translate to the game.”

The Sun Devil offense–in contrast to Michigan State– struggled to keep drives alive. Manny Wilkins uncharacteristically missed 10 deep passes throughout the game. Half could’ve resulted in touchdowns.

But as a senior will be, he wasn’t fazed. The Sun Devils’ game-tying drive featured a 38-yard pass to Kyle Williams and a 27-yard touchdown toss to Harry, two plays that made up for the mistakes of others.

“All it takes is for one of those to hit,” Wilkins said. “All it takes is for you to get a touchdown for you to get a little bit of momentum. We ended up getting some momentum there late in the game.”

Wilkins specifically referred to his 25-yard completion to Eno Benjamin in the fourth quarter, a third down conversion that extended what would be the game-winning drive.

“We knew they were going to play man,” Wilkins said. “So we knew if we lined up Eno in the boundary, and we had three by one to the field, that the linebacker was going to have to run with him and go through all those guys, so we made the perfect play call.

“That was the difference there at the end of the game.”

Following Benjamin’s completion, the Sun Devils advanced to the 10-yard line with 2:14 to go. They ran all three of Michigan State’s remaining timeouts, setting up Brandon Ruiz‘s 28-yard field goal as time expired to seal the upset.

The victory has the Edwards train off and running. This morning, ASU entered the AP Top 25 Poll for the first time since 2015.

But make no mistake, this project isn’t perfect yet.  Edwards knows his team has a long way to go.

“Still struggling to put drives together on offense,” Edwards said. “Defensively– not very good on third downs. We got a lot of work to do. We’re nowhere near my expectations.”

At the moment, winning can cure all. ASU has proven they deserve the respect of future opponents, and optimism now surrounds the program.

If they find consistency, who knows what else they could accomplish?

All quotes in this article were obtained firsthand by Devils in Detail unless otherwise noted.