For the second year in a row, Arizona State played host to a Group of Five opponent at home for their third contest of the season. In 2022, it resulted in an embarrassing loss to Eastern Michigan that would get the then-head coach Herm Edwards fired and send a season into a tailspin of disappointment. While the ramifications of Saturday won’t be as consequential, the action on the field was just as disappointing for Sun Devil fans, who watched ASU (1-2) suffer its first shutout loss at home since 1988, succumbing to Fresno State (3-0) by a final score of 29-0.
Missing a handful of impact starters, including quarterback Jaden Rashada and tight end Jalin Conyers, the Sun Devils didn’t have the ammunition to keep up with the reigning Mountain West Champions from the get-go. While the ASU defense made its best efforts to keep the game within range, their offense left them out to dry in a scoreless effort that featured a whopping eight turnovers. Giving up its most possessions in a single game since 2010, the Sun Devil offense expectedly had nothing to back up a stout defensive effort that conceded just 15 points off those turnovers and 29 overall.
“I’ve never in my career been involved in a game like that,” head coach Kenny Dillingham said postgame. “I literally couldn’t even explain how that’s even possible…“Like I told them in the locker room, how we played is unacceptable on one side of the ball. It’s the worst I’ve ever been around in my entire career.”
Considering Dillingham has been a college football coach since 2014 in four different programs, his description of Saturday’s game tells the whole story.
As that personally unprecedented game began to unfold, Dillingham and Arizona State came out of the gates flat, albeit against a Fresno State squad that came into Tempe sporting the nation’s second-longest active winning streak at 11. The Sun Devil defense, which had been the team’s strength in its first two weeks, was not greeted warmly by Bulldogs’ quarterback Mikey Keene. The redshirt sophomore set the tone by marching his team 75 yards for a touchdown, completing all six of his passes.
Just three plays later, Keene would have the ball back in his hands after Trenton Bourguet’s return under center was spoiled by a Carlton Johnson interception. While the damage was limited to just a field goal, Bourguet’s interception would serve as the first of several giveaways that would lead to a progressive deterioration of not only ASU’s chances at victory but its players on the field as well.
Following Bourguet’s interception and FSU’s subsequent field goal, the Sun Devil’s injury woes kept piling on, as if they already weren’t stacked to the ceiling. Having gone into this game with more than half a dozen regular starters on the sidelines, the rain kept pouring from an injury standpoint. After just eight passes, Jaden Rashada’s fill-in at quarterback Trenton Bourguet had to be removed from the game with a leg injury late in the first quarter. This thrust Notre Dame transfer Drew Pyne into action a drive earlier than expected, and his response to the premature alarm was a fumble on his first play, which Fresno State recovered to snuff out a scoring opportunity near the red zone.
After surrendering 56 yards, the ASU defense again held firm and limited Fresno State to a field goal, putting them in a 13-0 deficit to start the second quarter that could’ve been far worse. However, for ASU, it wasn’t about to get any better.
On their ensuing drive, Pyne would again give up the rock, this time fumbling inside ASU’s own 15, which Fresno State recovered. Whether it was first-game jitters for the debuting Sun Devil or outright poor play, Pyne was largely unable to execute against a Fresno State defense that gave ASU everything they expected leading up to Saturday.
“Reality is, everything that we saw, they had shown on tape multiple times,” Dillingham explained. “It was exactly, sadly enough, what we had prepared for. So we gotta be able to coach that better and make sure that our guys are not just taking the film room to the game, but taking practice to the game and applying it on gameday at a higher rate. That falls on me as the head coach.”
Following three consecutive drives that ended in turnovers, the ASU defense once again did its best to pick up its offensive counterparts, keeping FSU from reaching the end zone despite them starting their drive on the ASU 12. Rather than express frustration at the offensive struggles, the Sun Devil defenders could only play with the cards they were dealt. Rather than throw the obviously weaker side of the ball under the bus, both Chris Edmonds and Jordan Clark put the responsibility on the team as a whole.
“No matter what the offense is doing, we’re gonna keep going out there fighting, keep going out there battling,” senior defensive back Chris Edmonds said. “We’re a team; if they’re not playing good, we gotta pick it up ourselves. We’re a team, win or lose together.”
“For me, in times of adversity, when stuff is tough, I just want them to know that we still here for them,” Junior defensive back Jordan Clark said in reference to his teammates. “Whatever people in the stands or saying or however they may feel about themselves, we believe in them. Keep uplifting them, keep playing ball, and try to give them a spark. Those guys will get it fixed, and they’re good football players.”
While Clark expressed hope for a turnaround, it wouldn’t come on Saturday. Heading into halftime down 16-0, any hope that such an awakening could occur seemed to be dashed as the second half began. The last soldier standing from what was a hotly contested preseason quarterback battle, Drew Pyne could muster no more than a three-and-out to kick off the second half after ending the first half on an interception. Looking to put the nail in the coffin, Fresno State hammered it home with a five-play, 68-yard drive to score their second and final touchdown of the night and push its lead to 23-0.
With the pressure on, the Sun Devil offense couldn’t respond on the ensuing drive, as Drew Pyne came down with a leg ailment only after throwing his second interception of the day, the first time in his collegiate career he had thrown multiple picks. Unrelated to the hamstring issue that cost him much of fall camp, Pyne’s injury took him out of the game at a 5-13 passing clip, with four total turnovers charged to him. With nowhere else to turn, Dillingham was forced to deploy Jacob Conover as the quarterback for much of the second half.
As the fourth-string quarterback, Conover expectedly struggled against a Fresno State defense that had terrorized his two predecessors, going 6-16 on 89 yards with two interceptions of his own.
“If we would’ve just punted on offense, we probably would’ve had a better football game,” Dillingham quipped.
When all was said and done, the Sun Devil offense would cycle through three different quarterbacks, who would combine with the rest of the offense to turn the ball over eight times. Even with the Sun Devil defense holding the Bulldogs to a barrage of field goals, they would ultimately get no help from their offensive counterparts, who would put up a goose egg in an eventual 29-0 final. Dillingham was quick to take the heat for the long night on offense and was vocal about his player’s reaction to their performance.
“That falls on me, as the head coach,” Dillingham said. “We’re gonna fix the offense. Is it gonna be fixed overnight? No. Are we gonna be better? Yes. I know our guys are disgusted by how we played.”
Perhaps the one positive takeaway of the night came from the Arizona State defense, which limited Fresno State to just 15 points off of ASU’s mind-boggling eight turnovers. Dillingham sang the praises of the ball-stopping unit and their resilience despite the lacking offense.
“That was the one thing I’ll say we didn’t do, our team didn’t quit,” Dillingham noted. “We didn’t have the result we wanted. We didn’t end up scoring, which would’ve been nice. But we didn’t quit. Our kids didn’t quit. Our kids kept playing. That’s what we’re trying to achieve here, our guys, to play hard, play with passion and care.”
ASU’s unwavering attitude, though, would continue to be picked apart by the injury epidemic that had already taken out three of its quarterbacks. In addition to Bourguet and Pyne coming out of Saturday’s game, Dillingham confirmed that Jaden Rashada would be out for at least a month with a lingering injury that Rashada has dealt with since high school. With the freshman now set to miss the bulk of the season, Dillingham will aim to keep him qualified as a redshirt, thus playing him in no more than two additional games this season, saving him a year of eligibility down the road.
“He’s gonna be out for about 4-6 weeks,” Dillingham said. “He’ll be out; we’ll get him healthy. Six weeks left to go in the season, talk nine weeks; we’ll probably try to make sure we keep his redshirt alive at that point because that’s just not fair to him to play him in five games. So we’ll do what we can from that standpoint to play him in four if needed. The number one priority for him is to get healthy.”
Not just limiting the injuries to quarterbacks, edge rusher Clayton Smith had to be helped off the field towards the end of the first quarter with a left leg injury. Wide receiver Melquan Stovall and running back Tevin White exited the game following hard hits in the second half. Tight end Bryce Pierre and linemen Max Iheanachor and Joey Ramos all couldn’t finish the contest either. With all of these contributors, combined with the ones already out on the sidelines, one wouldn’t blame Dillingham or the players to point at that as the main reason for defeat. As Dillingham has preached, though, nobody cares about your circumstances.
“This is football,” Jordan Clark said. “That’s a risk. It’s a risk whenever you put your helmet on and strap your pads up. The mood around the team is next man up, you gotta play football.”
“I can’t worry about any of that,” Dillingham exclaimed. “I can worry about the guys that are gonna practice on Monday, practice on Tuesday, practice on Wednesday, play on Saturday. I can sit up here and ‘Oh, we’re down six o-linemen,’ what does that do? Horrible message to the football team. We’re gonna do whatever we can to score points.”
Scoring points, especially late in games, has been a massive issue for ASU thus far. In three games, the Sun Devils have combined for a grand total of three points in the second half combined. This mark, mixed in with ASU’s mere 230 yards of total offense on Saturday, certainly wasn’t what ASU fans expected from an offensive mastermind like Dillingham. Nobody was more upset about the performance than the head coach himself, though, who took the accountability for the offensive output.
“We should be able to see from the sidelines exactly what’s going to happen before it even happens,” Dillingham noted. “We gotta do some work, making sure everybody’s on the same page.”
Even with those familiar looks, the Sun Devil offense simply couldn’t execute whatsoever. As players and fans alike ask the question of “what’s the problem,” Dillingham promises to find a solution, no matter what.
“Our defense fought hard and battled,” Dillingham said. “Eight turnovers, giving up 29 points, that’s remarkable, to be honest. If you have eight turnovers and give up 29 points, that is, it’s one of the most incredible things I’ve ever been a part of.”
As heroic as the defense was, they couldn’t put points on the board for an offense whose performance will go down in program history as one of the worst in a single game. Even with all the disappointments and discouragements that Saturday’s result brought, Dillingham’s vision of where ASU football can go has not been blurred by this one game.
“The situation that we’re in is not ideal,” Dillingham noted. “But once again, who cares? We gotta find a way. I’m gonna do everything in my power to keep our team motivated, to keep working, to keep building, and get Arizona State to where I know it’s gonna get to.”
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