ASU Football: Slow offensive start leads to Sun Devils’ downfall against UCLA

(Photo: Travis Whittaker/WCSN)

Offensive coordinator Zak Hill needed to get his group kicked into gear.

So, with 12:56 remaining in the third quarter of Arizona State football’s game against UCLA Saturday night, Hill went with a gimmick.

Sophomore quarterback Jayden Daniels took the snap out of the shotgun. He threw what looked like a simple screen pass to his right, where sophomore wide receiver Ricky Pearsall was standing, ready to take off with the ball once he caught it.

Instead, Pearsall caught the ball and chucked it back across the field to junior running back Rachaad White, who took off for 51 yards and put the Sun Devils in the red zone.

It was the jumpstart ASU desperately needed. And it worked. The Sun Devils scored two plays later, as senior wide receiver Frank Darby caught a touchdown pass from Daniels to shorten the Bruins’ lead to 17-10.

But in hindsight, the Sun Devils best play of the game coming in the form of a trick play was a microcosm of the night as a whole. Hill called it because the offense couldn’t get anything going. UCLA had a 17-3 lead, and the month-long break looked like it certainly affected ASU.

While the Sun Devils attempted to rally at the end, struggles in the first half – and mistakes in the second as the comeback began – were ASU’s nail in the coffin in its 25-18 loss to the Bruins on Saturday night.

“I think we were rusty as a football team and I had a sense that would happen, not playing in a month,” head coach Herm Edwards said. “We had to figure out the speed of the game, but I thought we got into it and we were just playing football.”

The layoff wasn’t the only obstacle ASU was battling. New schemes on both sides of the ball are still becoming foundational for the Sun Devils, and Hill’s offense looked like it was feeling the brunt of the burden.

Four of ASU’s five first half drives were unsuccessful. The Sun Devils had two good drives in terms of yardage gained, but one resulted in a missed field goal and the other was set up by a 42-yard kick return from freshman defensive back D.J. Taylor. It allowed ASU not to be shutout in the first half, and the Sun Devils trailed 17-3 heading into halftime.

Earlier in the game, three punts were the result of good looking drives that simply couldn’t be completed, due to immense pressure from UCLA’s defensive line. Daniels was sacked twice to end drives in the first half, and the Sun Devils blocking was subpar against what Edwards called the best pass rush team in the Pac-12 earlier in the week. The aggressive blitz packages the Bruins sent toward Daniels resulted in bad throws. Miscommunications between the sophomore QB and his young wide receivers didn’t help, which displayed the newness of Hill’s scheme.

“The passing thing was their willingness to bring pressure,” Edwards said. “At times receivers and Jayden weren’t timed up, Jayden had to hold the ball a little longer than he wanted to and that made up for some of it. Some of it was that we weren’t picking up our blocks when they brought pressure, and they’re going to bring five, six man pressure at times, especially when they get you on long downs.

“They feel like if you don’t pick it up and hold onto the ball we’re going to sack you and if not you have to get rid of the ball and tackle the guy short of the first down.”

Additionally, flags consistently bit ASU, making drives even harder than they already were. Edwards said the layoff was likely the result.

“I think that contributed to the penalties more than anything else,” Edwards said. “I told them earlier when the game started, we are going to need to get into game-speed mode because the game is going to be really fast in the first quarter. I watched it unfold, the guys were out of competition for about a month. I thought in the second quarter we were able to build something back up and by halftime we got a game plan about what we needed to do to get back in the game.”

Pearsall’s throw to White got the Sun Devils going in the second half, but the same issues that plagued ASU in the first impeded their attempt to seal the comeback. Three ineligible man downfield calls took back two ASU touchdowns. Daniels’ struggles continued, although a shift in strategy to relying on the run game and short, easy passes was clear after halftime. Freshman running back Chip Trayanum ran hard, and screens to ASU running backs helped Daniels and the offense immensely in the face of pressure.

Still, Daniels threw an interception on a deep ball at the end of the third quarter which sailed way over his intended target’s head. A completion would have shortened UCLA’s lead earlier. The drive before that, Daniels fumbled the snap from senior center Cade Cote at the goal line on the backs of the Sun Devils best all-around drive of the night. ASU recovered after forcing a safety, but the missing five points were costly.

“I’d say what really killed us was just the costly turnovers,” Daniels said. “The fumbled snap at the one-yard line, the [interception], we just can’t turn over the ball.”

The excuses for ASU’s performance are reasonable. A month’s layoff interrupted the installment of a new scheme. Players possibly weren’t in shape and were still rusty. But the Sun Devils are likely to only have two games left, and the margin for error and the chances to gain a win are dwindling. If ASU wants to finish the year strong, the learning curve must be rounded.

“The good part is that we have a short week and get to play again, and hopefully next week we can get into the rhythm of playing football again,” Edwards said.