Creative offensive playcalling helps Sun Devils defeat UCLA

(Photo via Hailey Rogalski/WCSN

LOS ANGELES — Through his first nine games as Arizona State football’s head coach, Kenny Dillingham made one thing clear: He wouldn’t be afraid to call unconventional plays if it put his team in the best position to win.

From junior running back Cam Skattebo taking direct snaps and playing some quarterback to having his quarterbacks take some reps at wide receiver, there was seldom a contest where Dillingham didn’t think outside the box in his offensive play calling.

So when the Sun Devils (3-7, 2-5 Pac-12 Conference) faced a ferocious UCLA (6-4, 3-4 Pac-12 Conference) defensive line just seven days removed from their worst offensive showing since 1946, it only made sense that the offensive mastermind would get creative again. And this approach ultimately paid dividends, as big plays helped the Sun Devils defeat the Bruins 17-7 at the Rose Bowl — tying last year’s win total, both overall and in conference play.

“Just put our players in the best position to be successful,” Dillingham said. “Kudos to the players for believing in something that’s unique and goofy, and not just saying, ‘Oh, coach doesn’t think we can win,’ but saying, ‘Man, we believe in what they’re doing, and (are) going to execute.”

The most frequent example of Dillingham putting his players in the best position to win was his use of the unorthodox ‘swinging gate’ formation. In this formation, all offensive linemen except for the center line up at the numbers near either sideline, drawing the defensive lineman to that same area at the expense of leaving the quarterback and running back virtually unprotected.

But the reasoning behind consistently employing this package was simple — attempting to avoid an unfavorable matchup against one of the nation’s premier defensive fronts.

So far this season, the Bruins have accrued 77 tackles for loss and 34 total sacks, both top-three in the country. Putting a battered offensive line and redshirt junior quarterback Trenton Bourguet — who exited last week’s loss to Utah after sustaining an injury — against such a strong defensive line seemed like a death sentence, so Dillingham looked to completely remove it from the equation.

“We practiced Tuesday, and then Tuesday, just thought to watch (UCLA’s) fire-breathing dragons on the d-line again,” Dillingham recalled. “And I said, ‘Holy cow.’ I mean, there’s a reason they’re number one in the country in pressures of the quarterback. I was like, ‘Man, do we really want to play 70 snaps where these guys just try to kill our quarterback?’ and the answer was no, we did not.

“We saw one clip of (the formation), and I said, ‘Well, worst we can do is line up in it once, and if they do it, we don’t have to block their fire-breathing dragons. So let’s just see if it works.’”

And work it did. While utilizing this formations, the Sun Devils consistently picked up positive yardage and found success, as exemplified by a connection between Bourguet and redshirt junior wideout Elijhah Badger early in the second quarter.

On third-and-5 at midfield in search of the game’s first points, Bourguet found Badger near the sideline on a quick throw and let his shifty receiver do the rest. Badger made multiple defenders miss and broke a tackle to pick up a 30-yard gain that helped set up a 29-yard chip shot for graduate kicker Dario Longhetto, giving ASU a 3-0 lead it would take into the half.

“It felt good,” Badger said of the chunk play. “Obviously, going out with the lead always feels good and just going up 3-0 at halftime, we just knew that the game wasn’t over, and we’d just have to come back when halftime finished, second half to finish.”

Saturday night, ASU displayed it trickery immediately, with redshirt junior tight end Jalin Conyers lining up at quarterback on the first play from scrimmage. While the former high school quarterback only threw two passes, he proved extremely effective under center on run plays throughout the night. Whether he handed the ball off or called his own number, Conyers kept the Bruins’ defense guessing, as it was forced to respond to either a potential handoff or the 6-foot-4-inch, 270-pound Conyers taking it himself.

Skattebo was utilized in a similar fashion to Conyers, in addition to demonstrating his typical versatility. Taking snaps at quarterback, running back and even punter, the Sacramento State transfer put the Sun Devil offense on his back, accounting for 14 of his team’s 17 points on the night.

With his team still leading by three late in the third quarter, Skattabo capped off a 14-play, 99-yard drive with a 25-yard passing touchdown. After taking a direct snap, the running back rolled right and delivered a dart across the middle that Badger corralled inside the end zone.

“We worked (on) it all week,” Skattebo said of the passing play. “That wasn’t the throw I threw all week, but I knew that was an option. I knew that we didn’t have very much field. That was supposed to be a lot deeper [of a] throw. We had 30 yards of field, so (Badger) improvised, and I saw him, so I just got it to him.”

In addition to the passing touchdown, Skattebo logged 61 rushing yards, but none of his 12 carries proved more important than the one that came in the game’s final minutes with his team leading 10-7. After the Sun Devils converted on 4th-and-short — entering the red zone in the process — Skattebo broke multiple tackles en route to a 17-yard score that sealed the win.

Slated to host No. 6 Oregon and No. 23 Arizona in its final two games of the 2023 campaign, ASU will need to score the football early and often if it wants to surpass its win total from a year ago. However, with a coach willing to think creatively and a team that trusts this approach, the Sun Devils keeping things competitive in both games and possibly picking up an upset seems all the more attainable.

“I believe that (the players) are slowly believing that we’re gonna compete to win, regardless of what it takes,” Dillingham said. “When people ask me all the time, ‘Well, where are you at in your program right now, are you trying to play the young guys, and get them reps? Are you building for the future?’

“Yeah, we’re building for the future, but we’re trying to win every game. … Right now, this was the best chance for us to win the football game, and it’s my job to put our guys in the best chance to win the football game, whether it’s unique, crazy, a little weird, that doesn’t matter to me. I’m trying to win football games.”