ASU Football: Sun Devils mistakes too much to overcome

ASU football‘s three turnovers and penalties proved to be too much to overcome as the Sun Devils suffered their fourth seven-point loss of the season.

Arizona State struggled to hold on to the ball offensively both by turnovers and dropped passes in route to the Sun Devil’s fourth loss by a margin of seven points on the year 20-13 to the Stanford Cardinal.

Senior Manny Wilkins led the offense with 353 passing yards on 43 attempts and ran for a touchdown in the fourth quarter to draw the game to a one-score game.

While Wilkins flourished through the air, his 26th and final completion proved to be costly as he found Eno Benjamin on a crossing route with seven seconds remaining.

ASU was out of timeouts after using them to get the ball back from Stanford and the clock struck zero as the Sun Devils tried to frantically get back to the line of scrimmage. The play combined with two turnovers by Wilkins proved costly in the defeat.

“I pride myself on taking care of the football,” Wilkins said. “Two turnovers on my part is completely inexcusable. I feel like I let the team down, got to be smarter, give ourselves a chance there at the end. Just got to play smarter football.”

Wilkins first turned the ball over on a fumble after ASU had begun driving on the Cardinal’s side of the field behind a 10-yard reception from receiver Kyle Williams and 23 more yards behind the legs of Wilkins on a nine-yard scramble and the hands of Harry on a 14-yard reception.

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The senior quarterback was forced out of the pocket due to the rush and was unable to hold on to the football despite having two hands secured around the ball. Wilkins’ interception came in the fourth quarter of play after a sack by Stanford’s Gabe Reid put the Sun Devils in a third-and-19 on their own 34-yard line.

“I thought I had two hands on it,” Wilkins said. “The guy hit me right, the correct way and I fumbled. The interception, that’s on me. That’s what happens when you press and you force something and try to make something happen.”

Arizona State struggled to consistently move the ball on offense despite finishing the game with 437 total yards. The majority of the Sun Devils points came by field goals from sophomore kicker Brandon Ruiz after large plays through the air.

These instances included a 51-yard completion to Brandon Aiyuk to set up the team’s opening field goal, and a combination of completions of 17 and 36 yards to N’Keal Harry and Frank Darby respectively to set up a 24-yard field goal by Ruiz.

The lack of sustainability on offense was in part due to the turnovers by Wilkins and Harry, who also had an interception on a reverse pass that came in the second quarter, combined with dropped passes and seven costly penalties resulting in 87 yards for Stanford.

“Tonight, was a game of dropped balls, it was a game of turnovers and a game of penalties and that’s all on us,” Arizona State head coach Herm Edwards said. “When you learn how to correct that, you’ll win these types of games.”

Another key factor in the game was the time of possession and third down conversion rate as the Cardinal dominated both areas of the game.

Stanford finished the game possessing the ball for 38 of the total 60 minutes of the game and converted on eight of the team’s 17 third downs.

The Cardinal dominated both areas despite star running back rushing for 30 yards on 11 attempts while not entering in the second half of the game.

Arizona State was able to limit Love and the rushing attack for the majority of the night as Stanford ran the ball for 127 yards on 43 attempts compared to the Sun Devils 23 attempts for 84.

The loss was the fourth on the season for Arizona State as all four have been by a margin of seven points. These one-possession games come down to the fourth quarter as the Sun Devils look to control the game through the run and put themselves in a position to win late in the game.

With this style of approach, Edwards says it comes down to which team will crack or blink first, especially while playing the run-heavy style approach of Stanford.

“Whoever blinks first was going to be in trouble and we blinked,” Edwards said. “We dropped balls, we had penalties and that’s the ball game when you boil it all down.”

Despite the loss, the team has remained competitive in their four losses evident in the margin of the losses being one score.

The team sees the silver lining in these losses but is not satisfied by simply competing in these games.

“We’ve got to play harder and finish more plays,” Frank Darby said. “We’re right there we just need to get over the hump.”

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The Sun Devils will get a chance to do just that as they will travel to Los Angeles to face the USC Trojans in a game that will have critical Pac-12 South implications.

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

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