Over the last four weeks of Arizona State football, head coach Kenny Dillingham’s squad has presented two polar opposite performances. Against Washington State and UCLA, ASU played their most complete games, moving the ball efficiently on offense and limiting two dangerous offenses on defense.
However, both games immediately following the two wins have been arguably ASU’s two worst performances of the season, a 55-3 drubbing at the hands of Utah and last Saturday’s 49-12 loss to the No.6 Oregon Ducks.
“Two weeks ago, we went on the road and beat (UCLA),” Dillingham said. “I mean, we just played a team in Washington State who just beat a team (Colorado) by 37 points, so we can play really good football.
“The challenge is when things don’t go our way early, we’ve got to respond better. We’ve gotten to a point where we know how to win when things are going well. When we get down by 14 or get to that moment, we don’t know how to respond in the moment. We can respond on Sunday, we can respond on Monday, we can re-gather ourselves and go back and compete and understand that we can win any football game that we play. But at the same token, we’ve got to learn to respond in-game better.”
Against Oregon, that moment where ASU could not respond came on the first drive of the game. On the first play of the game, senior quarterback Bo Nix’s first pass was incomplete, one of only five on the day, and on the second play of the game, junior running back Bucky Irving was stuffed at the line of scrimmage, setting up a 3rd-and-11 on the first drive of the game.
According to TeamRankings, Oregon has been one of the most elite teams in the country on third down, converting 53.45% of the time, which ranked second in the country. So, with his team in a tough spot early in a game against his former offensive coordinator, Nix calmly dropped back and hit junior wide receiver Tez Johnson on an intermediate crossing route for a huge 18-yard gain. For the rest of the half, the Oregon offense had their way, scoring touchdowns on all six of their first-half possessions.
“One thing that we’ve struggled with this year is when things haven’t gone our way early on the defensive side of the ball,” Dillingham noted about his team’s struggles with answering back. “We either play really, really, really good defense or really, really, really bad defense.
“It’s not that our defense just all of a sudden becomes bad. It’s like we can’t bounce back when we get punched in the face right now. That was what I challenged our guys with, is we’ve got to be able to take a punch and keep our composure and keep our eyes where they’re supposed to be.”
While ASU has struggled to answer back in games, the last four weeks have shown that the Sun Devils have the ability to flush the previous week down the drain and bounce back for their following game. Well, their next game is one that they want to be at their absolute best.
Dillingham disagreed with the fact that all ASU has to do is beat Arizona, and the season would be a success; he does acknowledge that the Territorial Cup is a season of its own.
“I told our guys there are two seasons when you play at ASU,” he said. “There’s the first 11 games, and that’s one season. Then there’s the team down south week, and that’s an entirely another season. You only play 11 regular season games, and then you play one other entire season. And it takes seven days to play it.”
Against Arizona, everything means more, and every player is even more focused on getting the win. The passion is at an all-time high, and we saw it all on display last year. Our very own videographer, Nick Borgia, captured a viral moment in which Wilbur and Sparky were trading blows on the sideline. And as Arizona got the game-ending interception last season to clinch a 38-35 win, a fight broke out in the middle of the field, leading to multiple ejections.
Dillingham is trying to avoid a repeat of both the 38-35 loss and the fighting that broke out as a result.
“We got to play with a passion and intensity of fire in our belly to go out there to win the football game, but you also have to play with a poise and composure,” he said.
While he does not want that passion to be focused in a negative way, he also understands the history and importance of the game, and he wants to make sure his players understand it, too.
“We showed a video to our players to kind of explain and teach them a little bit about the rivalry and the history,” Dillingham remarked. “It’s the oldest trophy amongst all the collegiate trophies. Everybody has said since I got here, this is the game, but it’s something that I knew. Unless you’ve been in it, unless you’ve been a part of it, or unless you’re from here and know it, you don’t understand how intense the rivalry really is.”
For the first time since Arizona was ranked No.12 in the country in 2014, one of the two teams will be ranked heading into the matchup. The Wildcats have been one of the hottest teams in the nation, winning their previous five consecutive games. Across those five games, they have wins over Washington State, Oregon State, UCLA, and Utah, and all of them ranked wins at the time. A lot of the reason WSU, UCLA, and Utah are not ranked anymore is thanks to the losses that Arizona handed them.
Since replacing junior quarterback Jayden de Laura, redshirt freshman quarterback Noah Fifita has taken off over the last five games. All five games have come against ranked opponents, and Fifita has taken home Pac-12 Freshman of the Week four times. It has been an impressive debut on the college football stage.
“I do think a redshirt year is huge for freshmen to come in and learn and get their balance about everything, live away from home,” Dillingham said about the importance of redshirting in Fifita’s early career. “There’s so much to it, and he’s done a phenomenal job for them. He obviously played high school with a really good wideout that’s on their roster, and he throws it to him a lot. And that’s a positive for them.”
The wideout that Dillingham is referring to is sophomore wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan, who attended Servite High School in Southern California with Fifita. The high school connection has developed into one of the more dangerous connections in college football. Over the last five weeks, Fifita and McMillan have connected for 36 receptions for 452 yards and four touchdowns.
“I think what he’s doing right now at such a high level is he’s not turning the ball over, and he’s not taking sacks,” Dillingham noted about Fifita. “And those little two things that seem like they’re just small pieces of his puzzle, that’s what’s allowing him to run the ball. That’s allowing him to take shots.”
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