TEMPE, Ariz. – The old adage “defense wins championships” proved to be true once again. It was the Sun Devil offense that struggled against the Arizona defense, as the Wildcats forced turnovers in the 99th edition of the Territorial Cup.
Arizona State football (8-4, 6-3 Big 12) fell to Arizona (8-4, 5-4 Big 12) by a score of 23-7. The Sun Devils lost the turnover battle 5-1.
“You can’t have five turnovers,” Arizona State head coach Kenny Dillingham said.
The Sun Devils were coming off a game where the Sun Devils turned the ball over four times and managed to beat Colorado 42-17. Even though they won, they had to take care of the ball better against a potent Arizona team. They failed to do that as redshirt senior quarterback Jeff Sims threw three interceptions, lost a fumble and could have been credited with another on a botched handoff with redshirt junior running back Raleek Brown.
Arizona capitalized on those turnovers, scoring 17 of its 23 points off of them. Additionally redshirt senior kicker Jesus Gomez missed a 49-yard field goal that would have put the Sun Devils up 10-0 near the end of the first half.
The defense played well holding the Arizona run game to two yards a carry. It was the pass defense that struggled at times, allowing the Wildcats to get chunk plays. Arizona quarterback Noah Fifita threw for 286 yards.
The Sun Devils had one sack and six tackles for loss. Redshirt senior defensive end Justin Wodtly had the sack. Senior defensive tackle Jacob Rich Kongaika forced a fumble that was recovered by redshirt junior defensive back Javan Robinson.
There were two key injuries in the game, redshirt sophomore defensive back Adraian “Boogie” Wilson went down and redshirt junior wide receiver Jordyn Tyson left the game early as well.
“I don’t want to get into what pulled him out today, something lingering,” Dillingham said. “Those are two really good players, so its always unfortunate when you lose guys like that.”
Tyson not being in the game hurt the Sun Devils offensive production, but Sims only had 11 completions in the game for 114 yards. Sims had a quarterback rating of 58.3. Redshirt senior wide receiver Malik McLain was responsible for half of the receiving yards with 57.
The run game looked good as Brown had 63 yards on 13 attempts, averaging 4.8 yards a carry. Sims was effective as well with 43 yards on 10 carries and a touchdown, but he had a fumble.
When the Sun Devils were not turning the ball over the offense struggled overall. Arizona State had four punts on its drives.
“We gotta capitalize early,” redshirt senior tight end Chamon Metayer said. “We can’t start slow, we started slow.”
The offensive line did not allow a sack all game. Arizona only had two tackles for loss as well.
Arizona State only had the ball for 19 minutes and 59 seconds. That correlates to turning off the ball over five times.
Special teams struggled. Gomez missed his lone field goal. Sophomore punter Kanyon Floyd averaged 35.8 yards a punt on four punts and the punt coverage allowed a return of 62 yards and 32 yards. The lone bright spot was a blocked field goal.
The Sun Devils failed to score on the ensuing drive or any of the other two missed Arizona field goals.
The Sun Devils took only three penalties for 35 yards, which is something they struggled with at times this season.
Arizona State will not play in the Big 12 championship game with the loss, but will play in a bowl game, which is yet to be determined.
“I believe Jeff has the character trait of picking himself up,” Metayer said. “You can only dwell on certain things.”