In their first two games, both home wins, Arizona State imposed the will of its ground attack on its opponents, averaging 294 yards, setting the tone for the entire offense and demoralizing its foes. Conversely, this element in back-to-back road games has never come close to replicating that display. Last week at Texas State, this wasn’t a costly shortcoming, albeit the struggles took place in a close three-point victory. On Saturday afternoon in Lubbock, the ramifications were much different, resulting in the Sun Devils’ first loss of the year, 30-22.
On Saturday, Texas Tech came into the matchup, ranking 107th in the FBS in run defense and 122nd in scoring defense. Yet a Red Raider unit that had conceded an average of over 36 points going into the contest was able to stalwartly contain the Sun Devil rushing attack.
Rushing for just 94 total yards and averaging out to 3.1 yards per carry, Arizona State's running game was simply nonexistent on Saturday. Head coach Kenny Dillingham noted a multitude of reasons for the disappointing performance.
“Right now, we're not completely in sync like we were in weeks one and two,” Dillingham said. “Just weren't as in sync, wide zone teams are very, very in sync, between the O-line and the running back. And when you're a wide zone team, and you don't press runs, you don't get the double team to the backer. And because we weren't getting the double team to the backer, they were able to fold back on all of our runs and that happened over and over and over again.”
Senior running back Cam Skattebo, coming off a 62-yard display last week at Texas State, nearly duplicated that figure, tallying 60 yards at Texas Tech and ironically scoring two rushing touchdowns in each contest. In the loss, he was his team’s leading receiver, hauling in six catches for 117 yards, including a 66-yard reception that set up one of his scores. The senior feels the team didn’t bring its best foot forward on Saturday and they didn’t match the opponent’s energy level out of the gate.
“We just made mistakes, a lot of them,” Skattebo said. “We didn’t play our brand of football, got beat up a little bit up front early. We had a chance, I made mistakes other people made mistakes it was a team effort.
“It’s hard man, when we go down early and we’re trying to catch back up it's a hard game to play. It's hard to stay positive, I try to do my best because those guys look at me, and if Skats down they’re going to get down.”
Skattebo felt similarly to his head coach after the game, stating his team was at a disconnect offensively, leading to an inability to run the ball with the same efficiency ASU registered in prior matchups.
“Those first two weeks, we were on the same page 100%,” Skattebo remarked. “That Mississippi State game (where he posted 262 yards), we all were on the same page the whole game, and we were rolling. Today, we kind of had some miscommunications.
“We got to stay on each other's side and play for each other… it's the simple step of accidentally stepping left instead of stepping right and we miss a block. We get those things fixed and we get guys on the same page, we’re going to be dangerous.”
In the Sun Devils' win over Mississippi State, the offense converted on all three fourth-down tries throughout the contest, thanks to Skattebo and redshirt freshman quarterback Sam Leavitt. Yet in defeat, those same two players went 0-2 on fourth-down rushing attempts, both being stopped inches short of moving the chains. The third attempt was an incomplete pass nullified by a Texas Tech pass interference.
The initial fourth-down try that Texas Tech halted was a classic rush up the middle by Skattebo, who was stopped in his tracks by linebacker Ben Roberts, who led the game in total tackles with 11. That pivotal stop came in the first quarter with ASU down 14-0, and after the Sun Devils’ previous drive, the first of the game as well ended with a Leavitt interception.
Leavitt’s fourth down run also failed despite the signal-caller’s attempted to stretch his arms across the first down line only to be met by Roberts again. That drive was directly following another Red Raiders touchdown midway through the third quarter, up 24-10, and continued to crush any ASU momentum that may have rolled over from the first half.
For Dillingham, the inability to convert on fourth-and-one opportunities was noticeably frustrating as he and his team tried to reverse the uphill battle they were engaged in all day, and naturally, directly having the Sun Devils pay the price in a defeat.
“I mean we should convert fourth-and-one’s,” Dillingham commented. “Statistically, you should convert fourth-and-one’s, especially when the opposing team was moving the ball. We haven't been as aggressive this year because we've been playing pretty good defense, and when you are, let's punt it.
“But in that football game, the way they started on offense, so hot, we felt like we had to stay on the field and put together a drive so our guys didn't play, a billion snaps.”
The ASU defense was on the field for 83 plays, while the Sun Devil offense only ran 68 plays and had the ball for approximately nine fewer minutes.
A potent Texas Tech offense was able to run the ball constantly and with force on the other sideline. Senior Tahj Brooks tallied 17 of the team's 133 net yards, as the hosts posted 39 total carries. Despite the heavy number of rushing attempts, the Arizona State defense did find some success on early downs, but in crucial moments, especially in the second half, wasn’t generally not able to get off the field, seeing Texas Tech go 5-10 on third downs and registering three scoring drives that were 11 and 12-plays longs.
“That's a testament to us not getting off the field on third down and us not converting third down,” Dillingham noted. “All it was was third down. Take away third down, flip it the other way, different football game, those five to six plays. We gotta be able to do better.
“Tech played a really good football game. They dominated the line of scrimmage. I mean, absolutely dominated it. They had a good plan, and they dominated it.”
ASU will turn its attention toward an upcoming bye-week, having an extra week to rest and reset and try to bounce back from this road loss. Skattebo feels that this hiatus is a chance to focus on the inaugural chapter of the season and turn the page to a potentially successful second of three season chapters prior to an end of October second bye week of the year.
“Myself, I'm looking at it as we have three seasons this year,” Skattebo said. “We got four games bye week, four games and a bye week. Each four games needs to be a new season no matter what happens, we can go 4-0 for three seasons.”
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