Sun Devil defense delivers dominant performance against Cowboys

(Photo: Marina Williams/WCSN)

TEMPE — Last season, then first-year head coach Kenny Dillingham had to wait a long time for his team to force a turnover. After defensive coordinator Brian Ward set a goal for 30 turnovers in a season, the Sun Devils entered their fourth game of the season against USC without a single one.

Finally, 186 minutes and 45 seconds into the season, USC quarterback Caleb Williams dropped the handoff, and Tate Romney dropped on it to recover the first turnover in the Dillingham era.

The wait was a lot shorter in year two. 41 seconds into the game, Wyoming junior quarterback Evan Svoboda dropped back to pass for the first time. After recognizing pre snap that junior tight end John Michael Gyllenborg was receiving off-coverage, Svoboda tried to hit Gyllenborg on a quick curl route, but redshirt junior Zyrus Fiaseu recognized the play, jumped the route and put ASU up 6-0 before the first minute had elapsed.

“It really was just the play call,” Fiaseu said. “Play call was right, and I did my job. When you do your job, and you execute, good things happen.”

Fiaseu’s pick-six sparked a dominant win for ASU (1-0), delivering a 48-7 beatdown on a Wyoming (0-1) team that, despite changing head coaches over the offseason, is coming off three straight 7-plus-win seasons.

“(Wyoming’s) a good football team,” Dillingham said. “That’s a football team that returns 17 starters, that won nine games, that beat Texas Tech last year was tied versus Texas in the fourth quarter. I think (the win) was about ASU football, and I think our guys came and played our brand of football.”

On the defensive side of the ball, there is arguably one thing that Dillingham and Ward want the ASU brand of football to be over all others: creating turnovers. The goal of 30 turnovers in their first season might have been lofty, but it represents what the coaching staff wants their defensive philosophy to be. Winning the turnover battle makes it far easier to win football games, and last season, ASU failed to win the turnover battle in nearly all of its games.

The Sun Devils forced just nine turnovers, split between four fumbles and five interceptions, both of which were the lowest in the Pac-12. To add salt to the wound, not one of those turnovers was returned for a score.

Fiaseu’s pick-six was the first defensive touchdown under Dillingham, but junior linebacker Keyshaun Eliott couldn’t let his fellow linebacker steal all the attention. The very next drive, Elliott jumped in front of a deep crossing route, leaping in the air to snag a forced throw from Svoboda on third-and-23.

Elliott and Fiaseu were the premium additions of a new-look linebacker room that Dillingham, earlier this fall, described as “the most improved position on the team.” Both were coming off impressive seasons with their respective programs, but it was one thing that stood out on their resumes when Dillingham and his staff were deciding who to bring to Tempe.

“They were team captains on football teams that are traditionally really, really good, or a team that overachieved at one of the highest levels of a team could overachieve last year,” Dillingham said. “You want them on your football team, and I think tonight was just the ultimate reflection of that. They go out in the first two drives, and they both get interceptions. It’s like, well, ding, ding, ding, take team captains.”

Fiaseu and Elliott’s pair of interceptions were just the beginning of one of the most impressive defensive performances for ASU in recent history. A Wyoming touchdown with eight seconds remaining and both team’s backups on the field ended what could have been the first shutout in over 11 years — the last coming in a 55-0 season-opening win over Sacramento State in 2013.

A Wyoming team known so well for dominating teams on the ground were held to just forty rushing yards, averaging 1.2 yards per attempt. Wyoming’s performance through the air wasn’t much better as the Cowboys’ completed just 50% of their passes, throwing for just 78 total yards and averaging just 3.9 yards per attempt.

Overall, the Sun Devils out-gained Wyoming 499-to-118, and Wyoming’s last-second touchdown was the first time they finished a possession inside ASU territory.

“That’s a testament to all those guys and the work that they’ve put in,” Dillingham said. “What you saw tonight is what practices have looked like. It’s all it is. It’s what practices look like. If we continue to practice like that, it’s going to be easier in a game, and we’re going to continue to have success.”

Halfway through the third quarter, ASU was already out to a 34-0 lead, but after securing the first defensive touchdown in the Dillingham era, the defense wanted to really prove that the nearly no turnover team from a year ago has turned a new page.

Svoboda rolled to his left and dumped it off to junior wide receiver Tyler King. However, King dropped the pass, and redshirt junior defensive end Justin Wodtly, among many other Sun Devils, swarmed to the ball, picking it up on the Wyoming six-yard line and punching it into the end zone for ASU’s second defensive touchdown of the day.

On the review, the replay revealed a close play with Svoboda’s backward throw right on the line of the forward pass. It was close enough that the referees just went with the call on the field, and that call was a touchdown only possible by the aggressive swarming of the Sun Devil defense as soon as the ball touched the ground.

“It’s one of those that the call on the field is going to stand,” Dillingham said. “They’re not gonna overturn it, but guess what? We fielded it. We returned it because it’s a habit. It’s a habit. I lose my mind on plays like that. That’s the stuff I show every day to start a team meeting because you never know where it’s going to show up.”

It was as positive of a start as could be for the Sun Devils. The offense moved the ball at will, and the defense delivered the most impressive performance in the Dillingham era. Now they get back to practice, where the coaching staff will continue to preach one thing: aggressiveness.

“We play aggressive. We don’t play scared,” Dillingham said. “We play to be as aggressive as possible, and I think that’s what our guys believe in, is that we’re going to attack and attack and attack and attack on defense. Tonight, we swarmed the football, and you can see the effort.”