(Photo: Sammy Nute/WCSN)
ARLINGTON, Texas — The 2024 campaign proved doubters wrong for No. 15 Arizona State football. First, it qualified for postseason play in seven games after being picked to finish dead last in the Big 12 Preseason Media Poll. Then, head coach Kenny Dillingham’s squad shut down chatter about not beating a quality opponent by downing two AP Top-25 squads in the final three weeks of the regular season.
However, even after reaching the nine-win mark, there was one thing ASU still needed to show: an ability to close out games. Sure, they were winning, but they hadn’t handily defeated another team out of the water, often resulting in stressful finishes like their 28-23 win over BYU a few weeks back. That blowout was finally accomplished in the Sun Devils’ previous game at a reeling Arizona squad with them turning a 35-0 halftime lead into a 49-7 victory.
They used that motivation again at the Dr. Pepper Big 12 Championship, only against a far better opponent.
Up 24-10 after the break, the Sun Devils (11-2) forced No. 16 Iowa State (10-3) into three turnovers — an interception and a pair of forced fumbles — on their first three defensive series of the second half. That jolt was all they needed, as they went on to rout the Cyclones 45-19, marking their first outright conference championship since 1996 and punching their ticket to the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff.
“Logos don’t mean anything,” redshirt junior defensive back Xavion Alford said. “What makes a team special is the team and the people in the building. That’s why we’re sitting here right now, because we believe and we continue believing. We continue pushing through the ups and downs, through the losses that we had, through the injuries. We continue pushing and continue believing, and that’s why we’re sitting up here (as) conference champs.”
ASU didn’t just ride the momentum generated from their three early second-half turnovers, though; it used it to keep putting points on the board. Following the first forced fumble that was recovered at midfield, the Sun Devils executed a methodical 10-play drive that finished with redshirt freshman quarterback Sam Leavitt leading redshirt senior Xavier Guillory into the end zone with an eight-yard pass.
That was one of the three passing touchdowns Leavitt accrued in the second half with Guillory coming up with another impressive scoring grab that saw him adjust to an underthrow but still come down with the football. The other pass was to senior running back Cam Skattebo, which marked the third consecutive game he’s scored three touchdowns to go along with over 200 yards of total offense, a performance that earned him Big 12 Championship Most Outstanding Player honors.
From then on, it was all Sun Devils. They knew they had a big lead and refused to let up.
“It’s been great to see our guys play better in the second half,” Dillingham said. “I think they kind of took it personal after Week 11, when we let another team come back. They took it personally and they wanted to start finishing games better, and they’ve been harping on it, they’ve been talking about it and they’ve been kind of living it… The growth on this team is remarkable.”
What makes ASU’s 45-point outburst all the more impressive is that it did so without redshirt sophomore Jordyn Tyson, its leading receiver who was named the Big 12’s Offensive Newcomer of the Year on Friday. A receiving corps with several questions surrounding it heading into the weekend stepped up, accruing 219 yards as Tyson looked on from the sidelines.
And, as advertised, multiple wideouts stepped up to fill the vacancy.
Guillory’s two touchdowns were huge, but graduate Melquan Stovall led the way in the receiving game with four catches for 91 yards, including a monstrous 63-yard first-quarter reception on fourth-and-1 from his team’s own side of the field. In his first game since Sep. 21, senior wideout Malik McClain’s first catch of the season came in the third quarter — a 43-yard connection with Leavitt.
“That’s my brother,” Guillory said. “We all felt that when he went down. We want to go out and win this for him, because he was the most dominant receiver in the Big 12 this year, and I wouldn’t be here without him. So we were all glad to chip in and glad he was here to see that.”
ASU was also aided by an exceptional game from its secondary, who had a tough task entering the day going against two 1,000-yard Iowa State wideouts in seniors Jayden Higgins and Jaylin Noel. The Cyclones had some success in the passing game on their first few drives, even picking up a touchdown when sophomore quarterback Rocco Becht found sophomore running back Carson Hansen in the flat for the 3-yard score.
However, the Sun Devils heavily limited what those two receivers were able to do. While Higgins accrued 115 yards, he only caught seven of his 15 targets. Noel, on the other hand, was held to only 65 yards and a garbage time touchdown.
“(Those) guys step up to the challenge each and every week,” Alford said. “(They) make it one of the best secondaries in the country, from top to bottom… We step up to that challenge each and every week, and two 1,000-yard receivers, three, four, we’re going to step up to the challenge each and every week, no matter who we play, what logo. Don’t matter.”
With the win, the Sun Devils know that they have a spot in the CFP after being given a 0.5% chance to do so by ESPN Analytics only six weeks ago. However, the question becomes where they end up being seeded.
In the Week 14 CFP Rankings, ASU slotted in at No. 15 and a projected 12-seed, meaning they were viewed as the weakest conference champion, behind 11-1 No. 10 Boise State, who has yet to beat a Power Four opponent this season. Well, the Broncos just won the Mountain West Championship, defeating No. 20 UNLV by 14. And now, ASU just handled the No. 16 team in the country en route to a Power Four conference title.
The Sun Devils have yet to lose a game with Leavitt at the helm since Sep. 21 at Texas Tech — a span of over two months. Last year, a then-undefeated Florida State team was left out of the CFP because their starter, Jordan Travis, was injured in the squad’s penultimate regular-season game, demonstrating the importance of a team’s quarterback to the committee.
Only time will tell where ASU will be placed when the CFP bracket is finalized on Sunday. An No. 8 SMU loss to No. 17 Clemson in the ACC Championship would likely move the Sun Devils into a top-four seed. Either way, Dillingham made his case for a first-round bye no matter what else transpires Saturday night.
“These guys have accomplished things that I don’t know if any team has ever accomplished,” Dillingham said. “Being picked 16th out of 16 and then winning a championship. We’re 11-1 with (Leavitt), we’re Big 12 champs when he’s on the field. I think if you were to look at our resume with (Leavitt) as our starting quarterback, I think you can look really deep and hard to see where we stand with champions, where we stand with conference champions.
“We’ve already made the decision that quarterbacks are very, very important to the college football committee. Well, I think it’s time to double down on how important the quarterback is and look back at our season as our quarterback played.”
