Nearly a year to the day of Arizona State’s catastrophic collapse at the coliseum in Los Angeles, the Sun Devils stopped the bleeding and stemmed the tide of poor play. Fourth-quarter failures from a year ago were eradicated in the final 15 minutes of Saturday’s 31-16 victory over USC, as the Sun Devils turned a one-point lead into a two-score victory.
“They got our ass last year, man,” said super senior cornerback Chase Lucas following ASU’s first victory over USC since 2018 and a first home victory over the Trojans since 2013. “That shit hurt, bro. I couldn’t sleep for a couple of days because of that. Just knowing that we did it. I love this team. I really do.”
Arizona State’s rushing attack led the way as redshirt senior running back Rachaad White returned from injury and ran 28 times for 202 yards and three touchdowns. A third-quarter chalked full of ineffective passing aided USC in a slow widdling away of what was a 17-10 lead following a field goal to open the second half.
With Arizona State leading 17-16 on its first possession of the fourth quarter, White burst through a sea of linemen and reached the second level of the USC defense. Able to showcase his one-on-one elusiveness, White looked like the fox that visited Sun Devil Stadium in the opening minutes of Saturday’s contest. His change of direction skills left USC safety Chase Williams reaching for air as White ran away from defenders and into the south end zone to give ASU an eight-point advantage with 8:13 remaining in the game.
“He has great contact balance,” head coach Herm Edwards said, “strong, strong legs, powerful body, and a great body balance, but goes with the hit. When you hit him, he just kind of flows with the hit.”
Immediately following White’s second touchdown of the night and the longest score of the season, the Arizona State defense shut down a Slovis-led drive for a three-and-out. Then, the legs of Daniels and White brought ASU down the field for a game-sealing touchdown in meticulous fashion. White’s first three-touchdown game since ASU’s 70-7 win over Arizona was capped with a seven-yard score that capped a 10-play, 67-yard touchdown drive that bled the clock and sealed a sweep of the LA schools for the second time in the Edwards era.
“I looked up at the clock, and I said, ‘let’s do this,’” Edwards said. “It almost happened too fast. I told them I wanted to get down to under a minute. Just take it and go down the field, and they did. When we scored, I went, ‘oh boy,’ and then the defense went back out and did a nice job.”
Three ASU turnovers caused issues for the Sun Devils on a night that saw junior quarterback Jayden Daniels struggle to find any success. Daniels threw two interceptions for the third time this season after having no multi-interception games through his first two seasons in Tempe. For the second straight week, sophomore running back DeaMonte Trayanum fumbled the football, this time coughing up a fumble with 11:13 remaining in the second quarter.
“There are always consequences, but I’m not benching Jayden Daniels,” said Edwards of Trayanum’s absence following his third fumble of the year. Following Trayanum’s fumble on just his third carry of the night, the Akron native – who scored from 12 yards out in the first quarter – did not touch the ball again. “He wasn’t benched; it was just the other guy had the hot hand. He’s a big part of our backfield, and we’ve got three backs, but (White) was running.
“Next week, he’s running. We need him to run, and he’s a conscientious guy. He feels as bad as anybody. The intention of football players is not to go out there and make errors.”
Interim USC head coach Donte Williams and the Trojans juggled between quarterbacks throughout the night as junior Kedon Slovis and freshman Jaxson Dart got on and off the signal-caller merry-go-round on nearly a drive-by-drive basis. The constant switches at quarterback for Williams gave neither quarterback rhythm as the Trojans switched between quarterbacks five times. On the opening drive of the game, Slovis was intercepted by senior linebacker Kyle Soelle. To close things out, Dart was intercepted by graduate student safety Deandre Pierce as he tried to lead the Trojans to another miraculous come-from-behind victory.
“I can’t tell you that it’s the right decision, and I can’t tell you that it’s the wrong decision,” said Williams after Slovis went 16 for 28 for 131 yards and Dart went 8 for 17 for 89 yards. “We’re going to make sure that we play the best guy, and neither one of them has taken the full range to say, ‘that’s the guy.’ We’re still trying to look for answers when it comes to that department.”
ASU’s offense overcame a poor passing performance, and its defense had success despite continuing a troubling trend of lackluster pass rushing. The Sun Devils ran the ball for 282 yards on a night that Daniels’ arm produced just 145 yards. Meanwhile, the ASU defense failed to record a sack for the third straight game but still held a pass-happy USC squad to just 220 yards through the air and less than 3.4 yards per carry.
“There was some adversity, and we didn’t blink on either side of the ball,” Edwards claimed following ASU’s fourth conference victory of the year. The 15-point margin continued ASU’s season-long streak of nine games played without a one-score margin. “You could just sense it the way that they played; it was good to be at home. I think our crowd helped our defense tremendously.”
White’s 28 carries were a career-high for the second year Sun Devil. His 202-yard display allowed him to become the sixth Sun Devil in program history to tally 200-plus yards rushing in a Pac-10/12 conference game, registering a season-long touchdown of 50 yards and another from 47 yards that ranks third for the explosive ASU running back.
Lucas’ emotion was on display as the captain and his teammates wound down their postgame press conference. The sixth-year Sun Devil critiqued members of the media and made sure to note that Arizona State – bowl eligible for the third time under Edwards – had not quit on the coaching staff, despite conversations surrounding that in the fallout from last week’s ugly home loss to Washington State.
“The biggest number is one. We’ve got to do one game at a time, one day at a time and one week,” said Lucas, who tallied four tackles and three pass break-ups in the win. “I’ve seen people saying like, ‘(fans) didn’t want to come to our games,’ because we gave up on our coaches. We never gave up on our coaches. Our coaches never gave up on us.”
Lucas begged media and fans not to continue driving a wedge between players and coaches, while Edwards told reporters he views the team as united heading into the final quarter of the regular season.
“It’s a strong group of guys and coaches,” said Edwards of his team, as ASU now prepares for consecutive trips to the Pacific Northwest to take on Washington and Oregon State. “You have to be. We finished the game. Last year we didn’t finish the game. Good for them. They learned something.”
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