(Photo: Brady Klain/WCSN)
The old saying in sports goes that it hurts less to be blown out than it does to be in games right down to the wire.
For the Arizona State football team (3-4, 1-3 Pac-12), they have now lost two games in a row for the second time in 2018, with all four of their losses coming by exactly a touchdown. The latest loss came Thursday night at Sun Devil Stadium, in a 20-13 battle with the Stanford Cardinal (5-2, 3-1 Pac-12).
For the Sun Devils, this loss stings particularly hard given the way they felt they missed key opportunities for points on back-to-back drives into Cardinal territory that ended in turnovers; one due to a Manny Wilkins fumble on a quarterback run, the other an interception thrown by wide receiver N’Keal Harry following a reverse.
“The fumble was bad, that’s a ball security issue. It’s uncharacteristic of us, we usually don’t put it on the ground,” Sun Devil offensive coordinator Rob Likens said postgame. “And then N’Keal is just trying to make a play on a trick play, I mean that happens… but that was the difference. If it’s 0-0 in the turnovers, we’re probably over here celebrating and smiling.”
“I pride myself on taking care of the football, so two turnovers on my part is completely inexcusable. I’m beating myself up over that,” Wilkins said.
The two turnovers proved to be incredibly costly for Arizona State, as they occurred inside Stanford’s 35-yard line, with the Cardinal coming away with points on both ensuing possessions.
In terms of the overall offensive performance for the Sun Devils, Thursday night’s game was a departure of sorts from their previous three conference match-ups, as Likens put the ball back in the hands of Wilkins, after relying heavily on Eno Benjamin and the rushing attack.
Coming into the game, Wilkins had been averaging 23 pass attempts per game for 163 yards in conference play while Benjamin had been averaging 28 carries for 179 yards. Wilkins finished Thursday 26-of-43 for 353 yards, while Benjamin recorded 11 carries for just 38 yards.
“Going into this game we were going to take shots down the field, we were just going to do that. Stanford’s good, they’re very good against the run, we knew that,” Likens said. “We knew it was going to be hard, but we talked as an offense, as a family, and we said we were going to go after these guys and take our shots down the field… Those two turnovers just really killed the momentum.”
The Sun Devils now sit at 3-4, with all four of their losses coming by just one score, where arguably one or two plays could be the difference between a 3-4 record and a 6-1 record.
“Errors became our biggest opponent, whether it was penalties or whether it was turnovers or whether it was dropped balls… that’s kinda how it’s been,” head coach Herm Edwards said postgame. “The four games that we’ve lost, they’ve all kinda ended the same way, with a thud, not feeling very well. That’s not good enough. Those players are hurting in there, and we gotta find a way to win those games.”
“It’s bittersweet, because you can say we’re right there, and this and this and this, but after a while, that just gets old. We gotta find a way to get that other touchdown,” Likens said. “And that’s why we were taking so many shots, running double moves, running throwbacks, running trick plays… just trying to find a way to conjure up another touchdown, two more touchdowns. We just gotta keep doing it, we gotta find a way.”
Bobby Kraus is a football beat writer for the Walter Cronkite Sports Network. You can follow him on Twitter @bobbykraus22
