SALT LAKE CITY - For 30 minutes of football, No. 18 Arizona State (5-2, 3-1 Pac-12) looked calm, confident, and collected. It matched any and all adversity put in front of it, holding a solid two-score lead over Utah (4-2, 3-0 Pac-12) heading into the halftime break.

When the Sun Devils looked back up at the scoreboard on the south end of Rice-Eccles Stadium after the next half hour of football, the numbers told a much different story. ASU, known to be one of the strongest second-half teams in the country, was shut out, allowing 28 points in the final half of play en route to a 35-21 loss to the Utah Utes.

There must be something in the Utah air that Arizona State can’t breathe, a pill it can’t swallow. The Sun Devils came to Utah in September as the No. 19 team in the country to face the then-No. 23 BYU Cougars and left Provo defeated, mainly at the hands of their own self-inflicted wounds.

Saturday night was much of the same, with a twist of ineptitude on both sides of the ball. Penalties were just the precursor to the Sun Devils’ troubles, as it was their inability to control the line of scrimmage that really did the damage on Saturday night.

“It was a story of two halves,” ASU head coach Herm Edwards admitted. “They got the better of us in the second half with four unanswered touchdowns. Offensively we couldn’t move the ball and counter what they were doing to us… (Our inability) to prevent first downs and make stops on third down on defense really put us in a bad way.”

Things began as planned for Arizona State. The Sun Devils marched down the Utah turf on a 12-play, 75-yard drive resulting in redshirt freshman tight end Jalin Conyers’ first career touchdown in maroon and gold, a seven-yard strike from junior gunslinger Jayden Daniels.

Utah sophomore quarterback Cameron Rising and his offense responded with a methodical drive of their own, strutting down the field in a very similar fashion, taking just one less play from scrimmage than their Sun Devil counterparts to score.

Arizona State separated itself from Utah in the second quarter, with its tried and tested defense leading the way. It forced three-and-outs, created turnovers, and put Utah back on its heels.

Last week, ASU forced Stanford redshirt freshman quarterback Tanner McKee to throw his first three interceptions of the season. Similarly, senior linebacker Darien Butler picked off Rising in the second quarter, his first turnover through the air in 2021. As the clock wound down towards halftime, junior safety Kejuan Markham picked off Rising for ASU’s second interception of the contest.

Leading 21-7, the Sun Devils thought they had taken the air out of the building as they fought off the noise and their own miscues – eight penalties for 65 yards. The emphasis at halftime was not on the technicalities of outmatching Utah schematically, rather fixing their own mistakes.

“It all came down to us and our execution,” offensive coordinator Zak Hill said. “That was the talk at halftime. Every single time on our drives, it was us taking ourselves out of it. It wasn’t the X’s and O’s; it was about the execution in the final part of the game.”

“I feel like the coaches did a great job of preparing us for this game,” Daniels commented. “It just came down to executing. It wasn’t the technical part of the game, and so that’s on the players.”

In the second half, the penalties continued to mount against the Sun Devils. The Utes have sold out 67 straight contests at Rice-Eccles, and while the crowd was chock-full of supporters in red, the predominant color on the field was yellow. Arizona State racked up 13 penalties accounting for 115 yards across the duration of the contest.

“I have no idea (regarding ASU’s penalties),” Edwards said. “We went backward on some plays… You can’t do that, and we know that. I don’t think any player goes out there (intending) to make a foul, but we made them in certain instances in the game where it became (too much). We overcame a couple of them but didn’t overcome enough of them. It’s just too many fouls.”

“The coaches prepared us all week, telling us to not do the same thing (we did) against BYU,” Daniels mentioned. “We didn’t execute and shot ourselves in the foot… I thought we were past (the penalties), and we came into a hostile environment, and it was kind of like déjà vu.”

Utah flipped the script on its first drive of the second half, marching down the field methodically and efficiently, gaining momentum and bringing the crowd of 51,724 back to life, while finally capitalizing on ASU’s mistakes, as well as its weaknesses.

Entering the contest, Arizona State’s defense ranked in the top five among FBS schools in second-half defense against the pass, negating second half points and racking up sacks in the final 30 minutes of play. Instead, they were driven off the line of scrimmage and picked apart by the Utah running game and Rising’s short but effective throws on third down, as the Utes efficiently went 4-for-5 in those situations.

With Utah surging back, the Sun Devils, still committing penalties and fouls, could no longer dig themselves out of their own hole.

“They continued to make first downs, they went on substantial drives, and we couldn’t get off the field,” Edwards described. “That kills you defensively. It puts you in a bad way, and they got some momentum, and they scored they scored again. All of a sudden, the game was tied, and you could feel the energy come back into the stadium.”

“A lot of us on defense started playing with emotion towards the back end of the game,” graduate student defensive end Tyler Johnson said. “I don’t think a lot of focus was there coming out of halftime. We made adjustments but started seeing things we didn’t really adjust for. That didn’t matter in the end. We didn’t play well. We need to clean it up.”

Utah slashed the Arizona State defense for 285 yards in the second half on Saturday night with nearly equal distribution across the ground and through the air. To compare, Daniels and Co. only had 97 total yards on offense in the second half, with the junior finding himself on the ground in the backfield sacked four consecutive times to end the contest.

The Sun Devils just didn’t have an answer, suffering their first loss in conference play, while the Utes remain the sole undefeated team in the conference. Edwards’ squad embarks on a bye week before moving on to face the Washington State Cougars at home on Oct. 28. Their success no longer lies in their own hands.

“We have five games left, and we don’t control our destiny (anymore),” Edwards concluded. “All we can do is win, find a way to win football games… We do have the ability to control our ability to come back from this. We play at home and will have another opportunity to win a football game. These guys will take it hard, and the coaches will take it hard.”

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