(Photo: Nicholas Badders/WCSN)
Dressed in black and dazed with disbelief, ASU fans peered on as Manny Wilkins led the offense back onto the field.
There was 2:04 left in the game. ASU was leading No. 5 Washington 13-7 and on the Huskies’ 37-yard-line facing a fourth-and-three.
A punt could have pinned the Huskies deep in their own end, while a long field goal could have stretched ASU’s lead to an insurmountable nine points.
But the Sun Devils were going for it. They were going for the win.
“Just the way the game was going, you thought once the ball got near the kick-line, you needed to be aggressive,” offensive coordinator Billy Napier said.
ASU had been here before. Three weeks ago against Oregon, the Sun Devils – holding a three-point lead – faced a fourth-and-one from the Ducks’ 47-yard-line. Convert and they might have been able to ice the game away.
Only ASU didn’t convert that night, turning the ball over on downs and allowing Oregon to score on a short field to take the lead. The Sun Devils managed to come back and win, but the aggressive call was questioned post-game, all-too-tempting of a scapegoat had ASU faltered and lost.
Yet, when faced with the same decision against the undefeated Huskies, Graham and Napier didn’t blink.
Coaches on the other end of Graham’s headset – or “evil spirits” as he called them at the end of his press conference – assumed the Sun Devils were going to kick.
“We’re gonna punt right?” they asked.
“Nope, we ain’t punting,” Graham told them.
“But we need to pin them,” they responded.
“Nope, we’re not going to do it. We are going to go for it,” Graham reiterated.
For a second, the brave move looked like it was going to backfire. Running back Kalen Ballage had run a route out of the backfield and appeared to be the intended target, open in space just beyond the first down marker for Wilkins to throw to.
But the ball sailed over Ballage’s head. And right into the unassuming hands of tight end Ceejhay French-Love.
“Ceejhay made a hell of play,” Wilkins said. “It was a low ball. For a tight end that guy has really good ball skills.”
After hauling in the catch, the 6-foot-4 JUCO-transfer turned up field and took off for the end zone. He made it as far as the 7-yard-line, but with Washington out of time outs and the clock drained to just 1:56, it all but clinched the upset.
“Ceejhay was actually playing with a hurt hamstring,” Napier said. “So the joke [is] I’m glad he didn’t score so we could run the clock out and not give them the ball back.”
The heart-stopping, celebration-inducing conversion capped off an 11-play, 58-yard drive that drained the final five-and-a-half minutes off the clock. The possession was a microcosm of ASU’s performance: methodical, well-executed and unexpected.
“We wanted to seal the game, we wanted to put the game away,” Wilkins said. “We wanted to make sure we had the best play possible for us to win the game.”
There have been few wins in the Graham era that have meant as much as Saturday’s stunner over the Huskies. It draws ASU back to .500 and makes reaching a bowl game a distinct possibility. It also proved that the sixth year head coach can get his team to compete against the conference’s best.
“Proud to be a Sun Devil,” Graham brimmed. “Proud, that was a big accomplish to beat a top five team.”
The story of the night was ASU’s defense, which held a powerhouse Washington offense to just 230 yards of total offense and one touchdown.
But that lone score had come on Washington’s final drive. Just as the Jake Browning-led offense found its stride, the Sun Devils salted the game away with a march and a gamble that placed the final seal on ASU’s first win over a top-five team in 21 years.
Had the Sun Devils failed to convert, as they did in the Oregon game, Washington very easily could have driven the 60-some yards needed to capture a game-winning score.
But they did convert.
Hindsight is 20-20, but as Napier said after the game: “Going for it on fourth-and-three — at midfield, the way the game was going — that was the right decision.”
