Arroyo's Answers: How the Arizona State offense attacked stout BYU defense

Just a few hours before the Sun Devils kicked off what would prove to be a program-defining game against the 14th ranked BYU, news broke that Arizona State had agreed to extensions with both of their coordinators. Marcus Arroyo, who is in his first season running the Sun Devils offense, received a three-year extension that will pay him an average of just over $1 million a year.

Then, Arroyo went on to prove why he deserved such an extension. The Cougars defense came into this game ranked just inside the top 25 of teams in the entire nation in points per game and yards per game allowed while ranking seventh in takeaways. The Sun Devils went on to rack up 28 points and 401 total yards of offense, both of which were the second-highest this defense has given up all year, and only turned the ball over once.

That's with quarterback Sam Leavitt, who had never started a college game in his career before this season, leading the way for an offense that revolves around superstar running back Cam Skattebo, who returned from injury last week against Kansas State and put up his worst performance of the year.

How did Arroyo do it?

It started with his young quarterback, who has grown up before our eyes all season. Leavitt has excelled all season in being able to stretch defenses out without putting the ball in danger. He's aversaging 9.4 yards of average depth of target on the year, a solid but not overly impressive mark, but has combined that with the lowest turnover worthy play rate of any quarterback in the FBS this season.

Arroyo played into that against this opportunistic BYU defense. Just 12 of Leavitt's 25 pass attempts on the day traveled past the line of scrimmage, completing just 58.3% of those passes. One of those attempts was the 61-yard touchdown to Xavier Guillory, but outside of that play Leavitt averaged a 72.7 passer rating.

Leavitt's bread and butter came on quick throws - mostly screens and check-downs - that allowed playmakers to get the ball in open space and make plays after the catch. Leavitt hit on 90% of his passes behind the line of scrimmage and averaged a stellar 118.8 passer rating.

Another thing that Arroyo did to help his quarterback out was ratcheting up the use of play action. On the season, Arizona State has used play action on just over a third of their pass plays, but against BYU they called play action on 46.4% of all dropbacks. Leavitt was money on play action too, completing 75% of his passes for 202 yards and averaging a 109.7 passer rating. Notably his deep touchdown to Guillory came on play action too.

Of course, the play action game worked so well in large part because the defense was forced to sell out to stop Skattebo. Even with the battering ram of a runner coming off his worst game of the year, Skattebo is a force to be reckoned with, and Cougars defensive coordinator Jay Hill admitted as much ahead of the game:

"We got our work cut out for us. I am excited about the challenge. I think our guys will come ready to go. It seems like each week that we have faced a big-time back, the guys have risen to that challenge. So we better do it again."

Hill's game plan seemed to mostly consist of loading up the box to stop Skattebo, but it wasn't enough. Arizona State has been a heavy power running team under Arroyo, appropriately so, but they switched it up in this game and actually ran more zone rushing plays than power. The change-up seemingly caught BYU by surprise in the first half, when Skattebo ran for 96 yards on 16 carries.

BYU adjusted in the second half, more prepared for the extra dose of zone concepts Arroyo was throwing their way. They held Skattebo to just 51 yards on 12 carries, with a quarter of those yards coming on one big run in the third quarter. Those adjustments helped limit the Sun Devils offense to just 7 points in the second half, which in turn opened up for the comeback bid from BYU. Still, the defense's overcommitment to the run game opened things up for Leavitt working off play action.

Another tweak that Arroyo threw into the game plan was an expansion of his pistol package. The Sun Devils have gradually implemeted more pistol sets into the offense as the season has gone along, and they hit a high watermark in this game, running pistol on nearly 40% of their plays. Arroyo used the pistol quite often when he was the offensive coordinator for the Ducks under Mario Cristobal, and he's seemingly returning to that practice in Tempe.

The major benefit of the pistol comes to the run game. Running backs can still have the downhill running element that shotgun formations provide without backing up the running back as much. For a player like Skattebo, this has become a staple of the run game. But the pistol also increases play action effectiveness. Not only does it force defenses to load up for the run, but the fact that the quarterback turns his back to the defense for the fake handoff - thereby obscuring the mesh point and preventing defenders from being able to read the play - buys a little extra time for the quarterback.

Against BYU, Arroyo knew that the pistol sets of his offense could be immensely productive, and he smartly incorporated them at a much higher rate than he has all season. As a result, Leavitt had a career day on play action concepts and managed to be one of the few quarterbacks this year to play well against this defense. It all goes back to the solid work from Arroyo, who arguably called his best game of the year this past week.

An extension well-earned, indeed.