Sun Devils bullied through the air in 59-23 loss to Arizona

(Photo via Alyssa Buruato/WCSN)

TEMPE — In college football, it’s widely known that rivalry games just mean more. For Arizona’s redshirt freshman quarterback Noah Fifita, it didn’t matter that he was playing in the first Territorial Cup of his career. In enemy territory, Fifita put on a show, decimating the rival Arizona State secondary.

The Sun Devils failed in their quest to bring the cup back to Tempe and gave up 527 passing yards and four passing touchdowns to Fifita in the 59-23 loss. The young signal-caller faced little resistance from ASU’s defense all afternoon, completing 73% of his passes as he meticulously carved up the Sun Devils’ secondary and routinely avoided pressure from their defensive line. Fifita’s masterful outing broke the Arizona program record for passing yards in a single game.

“If you’re not getting pass rushes it’s hard for anybody to cover, but at the same time, if you’re not covering, the rush is not going to get there, and they need time too,” redshirt senior defensive back Jordan Clark said. “It goes hand in hand. We’ve got to make plays at the end of the day in the secondary. We’ve got to make plays, and we didn’t. That’s why we didn’t win the game.”

On the receiving end of most of Fifita’s passes were sophomore receiver Tetairoa McMillan and senior wideout Jacob Cowing, who had 266 and 157 receiving yards, respectively. Cowing also added a touchdown, while other receiving scores came from senior running back Michael Wiley and redshirt senior tight end Tanner McLachlan, who found the end zone twice on Saturday.

It quickly became evident that ASU’s defensive scheme was no match for the Wildcats’ offensive plan. On the first play from scrimmage, Fifita found Cowing for a 13-yard pick-up before flipping the field with a deep completion to McMillan for 30 yards two plays later. Although ASU held Arizona to a field goal to open the game, the two chunk plays were just a precursor of what was to come Saturday afternoon.

On the Wildcats’ first touchdown drive, Cowing showed off his versatility with a deep catch for 20 yards and a run-after-the-catch that totaled a 37-yard gain. Ffifita capped the drive with his first touchdown pass of the day.

“They were getting a lot of stacks and bunches, kind of playing with our rules,” Clark said. “They were well prepared in that aspect, but at the end of the day, we as players have to adjust. It’s not on coaches. That’s on us. We’ve got to make some of those plays. They made them we didn’t.”

Throughout the day, Arizona’s receivers averaged 17.6 yards per reception. McMillan posted the largest pickup of the day on a 57-yard bomb in the second quarter to set up a rushing score by sophomore running back Jonah Coleman.

Again and again, Arizona’s receivers were given plenty of space to make receptions and pick up additional yardage, thanks to Fifita’s ability to hit his receivers in stride.

While the secondary struggled immensely on the back end to contain Arizona’s skill players, the defensive front failed to gain any leverage against the Wildcats’ offensive line. On the rare occasions when pressure did leak through, Fifita commanded the pocket and found his men downfield, even resulting in a pair of touchdown passes.

“We couldn’t create a pass rush with four, and if you can’t create a pass rush with four and you play good wideouts, it’s hard,” head coach Kenny Dillingham said. “It sounds boring and simple, but simple is that. You give a good quarterback enough time to send two (NFL-caliber) wideouts down the field, and you can’t hit him, they’re going to get open.”

In the second half, the Sun Devils managed to stop the bleeding slightly. As opposed to the 357 passing yards they allowed in the first half, the Sun Devils held Fifita to a much-improved 170 yards.

“To be honest, I think our guys just kept fighting,” Dillingham said. “The calls were the same, a few more pressures … If you can’t get home with the four-man rush and you can’t cover four with seven, then there’s an issue, and those wideouts are good. They run fast, and they get crossers on you vertically down the field, so we had to make an adjustment to try to pressure a little bit more.”

Still, Arizona routinely exposed ASU’s weaknesses with huge gains. Fifita’s second-longest ball of the day came in the third quarter and went for 50 yards to McMillan, who finished the impressive play with a trip to the end zone. Later, 30-yard and 26-yard gains put Arizona inside ASU’s 5-yard line before graduate linebacker Tre Brown was able to come away with ASU’s only turnover of the day–an interception at the 1-yard line.

The loss was another strike against an ASU defense that has regressed in the latter part of the season. Strong showings against respectable teams like USC, Washington and Washington State were overshadowed by lopsided losses to Utah, Oregon and now, Arizona.

Still, despite constantly being beaten down throughout the season and in Saturday’s matchup, the Sun Devils kept going and put in the work to give the seniors the best send-off they could muster up.

“I think the biggest thing was just coming out with fight,” Brown said. “In the past, we’ve kind of laid down, I’d say, with some of the teams that have probably been up by two or more scores, so the biggest thing was to come out and fight. That’s not the type of team that we are. That’s not the type of character of men that we have, so we relayed the message that ‘We’re going to come out. We’re going to fight no matter the score, and we’re going to play ball, and for the seniors and the guys that this was their last time on the field, we’re going to give it all…’”