Jay Dieffenbach, Jody Oehler dive into why ASU football is 3-0
AZCentral Sports Director and Fox Sports radio host Jody Oehler take deep dive into why ASU football is off to a 3-0 start and what their ceiling is.
(This story was updated to add new information.)
LUBBOCK, Texas — The season may be just four games old but the new-look Arizona State squad that has prided itself on disciplined play and maturity took a step back in that regard on Saturday.
The end result was a 30-22 loss to Texas Tech Saturday afternoon in the Big 12 conference opener for both teams at Jones AT&T Stadium.
ASU (3-1) was called for eight penalties for 69 yards with seven of the miscues for 59 yards coming in a first half in which the Sun Devils trailed 17-10.
The most blatant of the penalties wasn’t a difficult call for the officials. Texas Tech (3-1) was facing a third-and-6 at its own 34 and ASU’s Myles Rowser sacked Behren Morton for an 11-yard loss, which would have resulted in a fourth-and-long with ASU receiving a punt. But Rowser stood over Morton for several seconds, gesturing and talking before being called for taunting, resulting in a 15-yard penalty and first down.
Texas Tech did not score but the issue flipped the field because Texas Tech landed its next punt at the ASU 1.
Kenny Dillingham applauds maturity during ASU football’s Week 3 game
Arizona State football head coach Kenny Dillingham addresses how he wants to deal with and address the officials this season.
“Unacceptable for us,” head coach Kenny Dillingham said of the Rowser penalty. “That’s on me. We got to get that stuff cleaned up. We can blame the players all we want but at the end of the day, it’s our job. It’s our responsibility to get them to act, to get them to play, to get them to do their job. To sign them, right. It’s the beautiful thing about college coaching. Everything is my fault. I bring them all here. I got to do a better job.”
There were other bad fouls too. A pass interference call on Keith Abney factored in Texas Tech’s first touchdown.
A face-mask on Justin Wodtly on what would have been a failed third down figured into the second Red Raiders score.
Parker Lewis booted the ball out of bounds on two kickoffs, giving up an extra 10 yards to the Red Raiders on each of those. ASU lost the field position battle all afternoon.
“That’s our first game since I’ve been here that I can say we were undisciplined,” Dillingham said. “We got to get that fixed.”
Turnovers had not been an issue either as ASU came into the contest seventh in the country in takeaway margin with seven takeaways and only one turnover. But on ASU’s first possession, Sam Leavitt had a pass picked off by C.J. Baskerville who returned it to the 38. The Red Raiders converted that into a 3-yard touchdown pass from Morton to Joshua Kelly that made it 14-0 midway through the first quarter.
This marked the first time in four outings ASU did not get more takeaways than its opponent.
ASU also turned the ball over on downs three times.
After time expired veteran safety Xavion Alford stood in the corner of the field and greeted each of his teammates as they headed to the locker room. He shook hands with some. For others, he just offered a consoling pat on the back.
Abney had a tough day at one of the corner spots. He walked off the field alongside defensive backs coach Bryan Carrington who offered some consolation.
“We got to clean it up,” Alford said. “We have to hold each other accountable as a team. Can’t get caught up in the emotion, being on the road, the crowd. We just have to play it snap by snap, lock in to the details, lock into our keys so we can be successful. Big play, small play. Just stay level-headed, not get too high or too low so that’s definitely what we need to clean up, clean up the penalties. Those killed us.”
“We just didn’t play our brand of football,” running back Cam Skattebo said.
The Sun Devils will have a week to regroup. The next game will be Oct. 5 against Kansas at Mountain America Stadium.
Source link : http://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=66efbf738713498fb08c8d0ae1b79a8b&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.azcentral.com%2Fstory%2Fsports%2Fcollege%2Fasu%2F2024%2F09%2F21%2Fbig-12-loss-to-texas-tech-shows-where-asu-football-can-grow%2F75326564007%2F&c=17572630369679542886&mkt=en-us
Author :
Publish date : 2024-09-21 13:06:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.