(Photo: Spencer Barnes/ WCSN)
At the end of a nearly nine-minute, methodical, late fourth-quarter drive, No. 12 Arizona State football found itself on fourth and one on Mississippi State’s one-yard line. Whether it be a touchdown or a field goal, a score would break the game’s tie and give ASU the lead.
Head coach Kenny Dillingham elected to play it safe, sending out redshirt senior kicker Jesus Gomez to knock an 18-yard, chip-shot field goal through the uprights. Gomez’s kick was good, and the Sun Devils could breathe a little easier. They had come all the way back from what was at one point a 17-0 deficit, taking the lead of the game with just 1:38 left on the clock.
Unfortunately for No. 12 Arizona State (1-1), Mississippi State (2-0) didn’t need a nine-minute drive; 1:38 seconds was more than enough for the Bulldogs. One 58-yard completion from graduate quarterback Blake Shapen to senior wide receiver Brenen Thompson, who ran through blown coverage and into the endzone for a touchdown, was enough to erase the Sun Devils’ comeback attempt and send them out of Davis Wade Stadium with the Saturday night loss, the sounds of cowbells and students raiding the field adding insult to injury.
“It’s a good football team,” Dillingham said about MSU. “They’re explosive, and they made an explosive play. We had to take away their explosives in the game. In the second half, we did that up until the end there.
“That kid made a play, you got to give that kid credit. Thompson made some plays out there.”
The 58-yard touchdown connection between Shapen and Thompson was MSU’s biggest and first scoring play since the first half of the game. The ASU defense seemed to figure out how to limit MSU coming out of halftime — allowing just 53 passing yards before the touchdown — but in close games, one play can make or break everything.
The Bulldogs ran a switch release with the intention of causing a disruption, and it worked. Redshirt senior nickelback Kyndrich Breedlove got turned around on the play, giving Thompson, one of the fastest players in college football, open ground to outrun redshirt junior defensive back Javan Robinson and score.
“That’s what their whole (fast) tempo offense is for,” senior linebacker Keyshaun Elliott said. “They’re looking for one guy to make an MA (missing assignment), and you know you’re going to get discipline for it. Obviously, there’s a few too many explosives that we gave up.”
The final explosive play lost the game for the Sun Devils, but two earlier explosive plays — also caused by mistakes in coverage — put the team in a hole that took all game to climb out of, and even after they did, the plays came back to bite them.
The first of the two plays occurred early in the first quarter. Senior defensive back Myles Rowser seemed to get lost and lose junior wide receiver Anthony Evans III, who caught a pass from Shapen at around the 30-yard line, and ran it into the endzone for a 48-yard touchdown, making the score 7-0.
After a field goal extended MSU’s lead to 10-0, Thompson outran Robinson down the sideline, catching a deep ball from Shapen for a 47-yard touchdown, reaching 22 MPH on the play and putting ASU into a 17-0 hole.
“They jumped out to a really big lead on us,” Dillingham said. “You got to give them a lot of credit. They’re (a) much-improved football team. This (is) a great, tough environment to play in and when this place is rocking, it’s as good as any of them.”
Aside from the three big plays, the ASU defense was able to limit the Bulldogs’ offensive effectiveness; the only problem was the ASU offense struggled mightily in the first half. Redshirt sophomore quarterback Sam Leavitt didn’t seem like his usual self, forcing some throws into tight coverage and missing the target wildly on others.
When the two teams headed back to the locker rooms for halftime, Leavitt walked off the field with only five completions in 16 attempts, 30 passing yards and an interception. Whether it be the SEC environment or the defensive looks, Leavitt was never able to get into a groove, and the offense suffered, mustering only a late field goal in the first 30 minutes.
“We couldn’t get Sam in a rhythm,” Dillingham said. “I got to do a better job of getting him into a rhythm, because you can’t play quarterback if you’re not in rhythm, right? It’s really hard to say save us on third down.”
Coming out of halftime, though, the Sun Devils looked like an entirely new team. Junior running back Kanye Udoh and redshirt junior running back Raleek Brown put the offense on their backs after an earlier injury to fellow junior running back Kyson Brown.
From the first, eight-play, eight-rushes drive of the second half to the eventual lead-taking drive in the fourth quarter, the offense ran through the two running backs. It was Udoh who nearly got into the endzone twice with ASU on the one-yard line before Dillingham elected to kick the field goal. If Udoh could’ve got even half a yard more, the outcome of the game could’ve been completely different, but it wasn’t to be.
“Just couldn’t punch it in,” Udoh said. “Tried breaking a tackle, then just two more people came. Just wasn’t able to get that last final push.”
While Udoh came short, the blame can’t be placed on a running back who ran for 105 yards and scored a touchdown. The three major defensive mistakes and Leavitt’s off night condemned the Sun Devils to a night of horror, and even then, they still almost pulled it off. The Sun Devils showed fight in the loss, and fight is something that can help the team overcome the loss and come back stronger.
“I thought our guys responded great in this football game,” Dillingham said. “We’re one play away from this press conference being an unbelievable comeback, and that’s football, right? And that’s what I say all the time, it’s about the moments in the game. It’s about winning the close games. … And I think to the guys, it’s not letting the result create an emotional response to how we’re going to move forward. … Yeah, it’s going to affect our win-loss column, but it can’t affect our future games.”
