ASU Football: Devils can’t quite mount comeback, fall to Aztecs

Despite trailing by 14 with less than two minutes remaining in the game, ASU football mounted a comeback but came up just short, falling 28-21.

With 7:46 left in the third quarter, San Diego State kicker John Baron hit a 54-yard field goal to give the Aztecs their first lead of the game.

ASU froze after that.

Immediately after the made field goal, Ryan Newsome made a suspect decision to return a kick from the end zone, setting ASU up with horrible field position at the 10-yard line. As a result, the Sun Devils went three-and-out that drive.

In the entire third quarter, the Sun Devils only recorded 13 total yards of offense and -2 rushing yards. They did not move the chains once in the quarter.

“They stopped us for the most part,” ASU head coach Herm Edwards said. “We had bad field position — we’re not doing a good job of fielding kickoffs. That’s just mental errors; you can’t do that.”

In spite of all of this, ASU didn’t go out without a fight.

N’Keal Harry cashed in on a seven-yard touchdown pass from Manny Wilkins with 1:40 remaining in the game.

Though the Sun Devils didn’t recover the ensuing onside kick, Arizona State forced a fumble on SDSU’s drive to retain possession with 0:43 left.

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On 4th-and-10, Wilkins appeared to complete a pass to Frank Darby inside the five-yard line, which included targeting, with six seconds left in the game.

However, upon further review, the targeting stood, but the officials decided Darby didn’t catch the pass. Darby said he didn’t agree with the officials’ decision to overturn the call on the field.

“I promise you, I caught that pass,” Darby said. “No doubt about it, I caught that pass and I came down.”

On the last play of the game, Manny Wilkins attempted a hail mary, but it was swatted away, completing SDSU’s 28-21 win.

“Obviously a disappointing loss for us, coming on the road trying to win our first road game,” Edwards said. “Gotta give San Diego State a lot of credit. Going into this game, they knew what they wanted to do.”

While disappointed by the loss, Edwards said he was pleased by the fight his team showed at the end of the game.

“I like the way we fought back with a couple minutes left, trying to maybe have a chance to win it,” Edwards said. “(We) just fell a little bit short.”

Although the ineffectiveness of the offense and the video review ultimately cost ASU the game, the run defense didn’t help much either. San Diego State rushed for a total of 311 yards on the ground, which is 246 more than ASU had allowed in both of its first two games combined.

SDSU running back Juwan Washington was expected to have a big game, as he entered Week 3 as the nation’s third-leading rusher. He did just that and more, rushing for 138 yards and a touchdown on 27 carries.

However, Washington wasn’t the only force in SDSU’s backfield. His backup, Chase Jasmin, ran for 112 yards and a touchdown on 19 carries.

“They ran the football on us,” Edwards said. “Got to the second level, we missed some tackles. 311 yards — it’s hard to win a football game allowing people to run like that.”

Though the offense was stagnant for the majority of the second half, the Sun Devils’ passing game was sharp in the first half. Wilkins scored two total touchdowns and threw for 235 yards in the first 30 minutes of play.

The senior quarterback finished the game with 341 yards and two touchdowns, but he still claimed responsibility for the loss.

“I gotta do a better job of putting us in a position to win football games,” Wilkins said. “I should’ve given us a chance, that’s on me.”

Next up for the Sun Devils is another road game, and the games only get tougher from here on out. ASU travels to Seattle next Saturday for a road showdown against Washington, who defeated Utah on the road this week.

In preparation for Washington, Edwards said there are issues that need to be resolved.

“There’s a lot of things we gotta look at,” Edwards said. “We gotta get it corrected.”

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