ASU passing game finds footing in 35-13 victory over Colorado

Opponents have received the memo on Arizona State’s offensive attack. The Sun Devils want to run the ball and, more often than not, have proven they are going to have success doing it. Faced with the challenge of a Colorado defense that opted to stack the box in hopes of stopping the nation’s 18th-ranked rushing attack, junior quarterback Jayden Daniels responded Saturday night with one of the cleanest passing performances of his career.

“I think this is one of his better nights,” head coach Herm Edwards said of the performance Daniels provided. The third-year Sun Devil starter completed 18 of his 25 passes for 236 yards and a 151.3 passer rating. “(He) sat in the pocket and surveyed the situation and made some throws. One throw on the sideline – a double bench combination – that was big time.”

The throw Edwards was referencing came on the second Sun Devil drive of the second half. With the Sun Devils backed up at their own 10-yard line, offensive coordinator Zak Hill put the ball in Daniels’s hands-on first-and-10. Daniels dropped back, and with his back foot, just a yard away from his own goal line, uncorked a ball from the far hash mark to outside the numbers. Redshirt freshman wide receiver Johnny Wilson was on the receiving end of the strike that traveled 30 yards in the air and gained 24 for the Sun Devils.

“That throw is (made) on Sundays,” Edwards told reporters following Arizona State’s 35-13 victory, the first win in a Pac-12 conference opener for ASU under Edwards. “I think as he continues to gain confidence with the receivers, it’s going to get better.”

In order for Arizona State to play in and win the games Edwards and the Sun Devils dream to participate in, the offense can’t be one-dimensional. During the first two games at Sun Devil Stadium, it was, as ASU was held under 200 yards passing in wins over Southern Utah and UNLV.

“We’ve got eight more Pac-12 games,” Edwards remarked. “We’ve got to get that going. We wanted to hit some explosive plays in the passing game, and we were able to do that. I think the receivers are starting to hone in.

“We just can’t always try to run the ball. People are starting to stack the box, and they did a nice job with that today.”

Hill’s offense was explosive in the passing game early last week in Provo, but an overwhelming barrage of procedural penalties frequently put the Sun Devils in less-than-ideal downs and distances to operate with any offense effectiveness. Saturday night against Colorado was the opposite of last week’s performance. Arizona State’s passing game remained on schedule frequently, and Daniels produced multiple stretches of impressive completion after impressive completion.

On the first drive of the second half, the Sun Devils opened with a five-yard carry from White. The next three plays were clinical from Daniels. Each of the three plays resulted in first downs as Daniels found Wilson for a gain of 14 and sophomore wide receiver LV Bunkley-Shelton for gains of 13 and 15 yards on the next two plays.

“I think Jayden is feeling more and more comfortable out there,” said Hill. “I know our wide receivers are hungry, and they are doing a great job in practice. It starts there. If we prepare like we did this week – we just gotta do it week-in and week-out. It’s good to see Jayden hit a couple of those passes.”

Success in the passing game was necessary for the ASU offense on a night where the Sun Devils were without sophomore running back DeaMonte Trayanum and saw redshirt senior running back Rachaad White, and redshirt freshman running back Daniyel Ngata both uncharacteristically be held below five yards per carry.

“We always want to run the ball, but in reality, as an offense, we want to be 50-50,” White said following a night where he was held to 37 yards rushing on 11 carries. Without his typical success in the run game, White contributed – as he frequently does – in the passing game, with five receptions for 70 yards. “I thought it was great, especially tonight that the passing game got going. Everybody got a rhythm. If they want to stack the box, we trust the receivers.”

A quick glance at the postgame box score wouldn’t reveal the entire truth. Sure, Daniels wound up as Arizona State’s leading rusher. He finished with seven carries for 75 yards and two touchdowns on the ground, but the accumulation of the carries came in a different manner than two weeks prior, when Daniels ran 11 times for 125 yards.

Challenged with a third-and-11 in the second quarter, Daniels took a snap in his own end zone and rolled out to his right. As the junior Sun Devil quarterback approached the line of scrimmage, he kept his eyes up-field and found Bunkley-Shelton tight-roping the sideline. The catch-and-run for the sophomore resulted in a 37-yard gain and was indicative of the growth Daniels has made since his scramble-filled UNLV showing.

“Teams see me as a threat with my legs as soon as I leave the pocket,” Daniels said, “so all eyes are on me. That’s something we worked on all off-season. I want to throw the ball before running. The defender came at me, and LV was wide open, so that was something that we connected on. That’s something we’ve worked on, and that’s going to keep defenses off-balance.”

Despite how on-schedule the passing game looked against the Buffaloes, Arizona State still scored four of its five touchdowns on the ground. The lone passing touchdown came on a trick play when junior wide receiver Ricky Pearsall completed a 30-yard touchdown pass to White in the fourth quarter. Through four games, Daniels has thrown just two passing touchdowns. That’s not a worry to Edwards, though.

“I always like running the ball down there rather than throwing,” Edwards said of the red zone. Rather than worry about the passing touchdown numbers, Edwards will live with his program’s signal-caller completing 72 percent of his passes. “Bad things happen when you start throwing it down there. We score a lot of touchdowns running the ball down there.”

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