TUCSON – The Sun Devils marched into Tucson with playoff implications riding on the Territorial Cup game. With a win, ASU would all but punch its ticket to the Big 12 Championship game, barring several upsets. While Arizona came into the game 4-7 and had no bowl game berth to play for, a rivalry game is always a reason for a team to play its heart out.
The Sun Devils (10-2 (7-2 Big 12)) took back the Territorial Cup after spending two years in Tucson, trouncing Arizona (4-8 (2-7 Big 12) 49-7) in a game that took Sun Devil fans back to 2020, when ASU embarrassed Arizona 70-7.
“That felt really good,” Dillingham, an Arizona native and ASU alumni, said. “Our guys played their best game of football in the most important game of the year. It was great to see our guys go out there and play four amazing quarters of football. Absolutely incredible accomplishment by our guys. To go from what we did last year to what we did this year is a remarkable turnaround.”
With TCU beating Cincinnati a couple of hours after the game, the Sun Devils officially booked their name in the Big 12 Championship in their first year as a member of the conference. After being picked last in the Big 12 media preseason poll, the Sun Devils successfully flipped the conference on its head and will play for a spot in the College Football Playoff next week.
“I don’t know if I can really grasp it,” Leavitt commented. “I’ll probably understand what it means once I get in that situation, but it’s crazy. This was my plan all along, and to see it come to fruition is pretty special. I’ve been nothing but blessed my whole life, and all glory to God.”
ASU also finished the regular season with ten wins for the first time since the Todd Graham era, back in 2014, when the Sun Devils finished 10-3 and won the Sun Bowl. However, the year prior was the last time they finished the regular season with ten wins. That year, they lost the Pac-12 Championship game 38-14 to Stanford and the Holiday Bowl, finishing at 10-4.
“I don’t know if anybody would ask me if we would win 10 games at the start of the season,” Dillingham admitted.“These guys are special, and we never focused on the outside noise or anybody saying that we’re good now. We didn’t let all that stuff blind us from what we believed we could accomplish. It's unique that you get a group of 18-22 year-olds, and they're wired in a way where all they want to do is get better and compete. People should embrace this season.”
There is concern for redshirt sophomore receiver Jordyn Tyson, who left the game midway through the third quarter with a shoulder injury after catching eight passes for 143 yards. He went back to the locker room and came out in a shoulder sling with tears streaming down his face.
Dillingham did not have an update after the game, as Tyson will get his shoulder checked out tomorrow once the team gets back to Tempe. If Tyson is out, the Sun Devils will face a major challenge, missing half of their receiving yards on the year.
For the time he was on the field, Tyson and redshirt freshman quarterback Sam Leavitt were unstoppable. With Arizona running a mixture of man and zone on defense, Tyson either sat down in a soft spot in the zone or beat his man 1-on-1. Once Tyson went out, Leavitt continued slinging the ball downfield and had a perfect pass in the breadbasket for redshirt senior receiver Xavier Guillory for a 31-yard touchdown on 4th and 11.
“Since I got here, Xavier has always put in the work,” Leavitt noted. “He’s at the facility late all the time and constantly grinding. He puts his head down and puts in the work. I’m super happy to see the ball go his way and make a big-time play on fourth down.”
On the ground, the Sun Devils dominated the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. Senior running back Cam Skattebo ran for 177 yards on 21 carries, bulldozing any player that tried to tackle him by themselves. After the game, he was two votes away from unanimously winning the Bob Moran Award as the best player in the Territorial Cup game. With his performance, he officially passed the 4,000 career rushing yard mark, now at 4,089.
“I play to win football games and put smiles on people’s faces,” Skattebo voiced. “I do it because my teammates have my back, and there’s nothing better than a brotherhood that football brings to your life. I’ll have these connections for the rest of my life until I’m passed away and dead. You can make $500 million, but the connections are what’s deep.”
The Wildcats had no answer for Skattebo or his teammate, sophomore running back Kyson Brown. Brown took eight carries for 100 yards as the offensive line parted the Red Sea of defensive linemen every time he got the ball.
“He’s an example of time on task,” Leavitt mentioned. “He’s a kid who has such a good feel for the gam,e and we just work on it so much. It’s night and day from even three weeks ago, it’s funny to see how much we grow every single time. We just keep going to work, and you can't do much more than that. We just keep putting our foot on the gas and staying humble.”
The Sun Devils scored on each of their first four drives while holding the Wildcats to no points in the second half. Sophomore quarterback Noah Fifita and junior receiver Tetaiora McMillan were one of the top duos in the country, with McMillan third in the country in receiving yards heading into today’s game with 1,251 receiving yards but was limited to just six catches for 68 yards and the lone touchdown for Arizona.
While the Sun Devils obviously honed in on him during the game more than the other receivers, McMillan could have easily had a couple more catches if Fifita hadn’t overthrew him on multiple occasions. The entire offense for Arizona has run through the Fifita-McMillan connection, and the Sun Devils successfully limited his impact.
“Did we limit them?” Leavitt asked with a smirk. “We talked about that early in the week, and they’re supposedly the duo, but we want to come and let them know what it really was with us. So I’m happy to hear that.”
The two were out of sync today. McMillan also dropped routine catches for him, and they struggled to get on the same page all game long. Fifita also seemed to lose power in his throws in the second half, as several of his passes were thrown into the grass in front of his receivers with virtually no pressure by the defense.
While the Sun Devils have, at times, lacked a pass rush, they turned up the heat today. After a facemask penalty from senior defensive edge Elijah O’Neal, he came back with a sack on back-to-back drives, finishing second on the team in tackles with five. The Sun Devils certainly understood the significance of the rivalry game, laying hit after hit on Arizona’s players.
“Everybody sees this, but they don’t see the hard work we put in,” junior safety Xavion Alford explained. “The uncomfortable conversations we had with each other, and imagine ready for the season and 150 guys screaming at each other trying to win. That’s the thing about this team: everybody cares, from the coaches all the way down to the players and training staff. We know the work we put in, and Saturdays are our day to come out and show the world.”
The most electric one came on one of the kickoffs when true freshman linebacker Martell Hughes lit up the returner by grabbing him and just throwing him to the ground. After every hard hit, the Sun Devils all celebrated with each other, displaying a sense of unity that’s been apparent all season long.
Once the game was out of reach at 42-7 in the fourth quarter, Dillingham sent in the second-team offense with redshirt senior quarterback Trenton Bourguet. The Tucson native, who had played at ASU since 2019, saw both sides of the Territorial Cup game, finishing with a record of 4-2 against his hometown team.
“Everybody understands here what Trenton means to the program,” Dillingham expressed. “It was common sense to put him in because that dude and his family have done so much for this program, so let’s get him an opportunity to go out, and it was a pretty special moment for him and us.”
His first throw of the game was to his brother, redshirt junior receiver Coben Bourguet, for a 7-yard gain, but the play itself meant more for the Bourguet family and ASU than the yardage. His second throw was a screen pass to redshirt freshman receiver Derek Eusebio, who walked onto the team as a true freshman last year but didn’t record a single stat for his first 23 games as a Sun Devil.
On his first catch in college, he took it 64 yards to the house and was instantly swarmed by his teammates both in the endzone and once he reached the sideline. Tyson came out of the locker room in tears shortly after, but his mood instantly changed when he got word of Eusebio’s touchdown. This is another example of how much every player cares about each other.
“My mom went to U of A, so now I have ultimate bragging rights,” Eusebio said as he smiled. “Hines (Ward) has told me to stay ready all year, and being behind guys like Tyson and Melquan (Stovall) and learning from them has been great. I was just waiting for my chance, and I got it. It feels amazing.”
Once halftime hit, most of the Arizona fans left the stadium, and a sea of gold filled their seats. By the time the final whistle blew, the lower bowl was mostly ASU fans, and the players took the Territorial Cup over to them as they celebrated with them. Sun Devils fans will have a pleasant drive back to Tempe with the team in high spirits.
“Our fans were way louder than theirs,” Leavitt noticed. “Probably because we had better plays than them, but it feels super fun to be able to walk in your trap and take over your trap after the game. That’s kind of essentially what we were trying to do.”
The Sun Devils, now ensuring their spot in the Big 12 Championship game, will look to make the College Football Playoff with a win in that contest for the first time in program history, with the Big 12 champion guaranteed to make the 12-team bracket. At press time, the opponent for the Sun Devils Saturday in Arlington, Tex. is unknown, and Dillingham still peaches in, worrying only about what his team can control.
“I told our guys that we’re going to play another game,” Dillingham stated. “I don’t know who we’re playing, but I just know we’ll be in it. I’m excited about what’s next and what can become in this program. This is year two and we were built to continue to get better. Hopefully, that continues to happen and we can create something sustainable.”
