By Jacob Seliga
Lead Writer
If a person were to look at the box score of Saturday night’s matchup between the Arizona State Sun Devils and the Kansas Jayhawks, one could make the conclusion that Tempe was the location of the Jayhawks resurgence of a lost season.
After all, the Sun Devils lost the turnover battle, lost multiple key defensive players to ejection, and gave up seven third down conversions.
But football isn’t played on paper, it’s played on the field with blood, sweat, and tears and every last drop of energy a player can give and that’s exactly what Keith Abney did as he swatted a hail mary attempt on the game’s final play to secure a 35-31 Sun Devil victory.
The fourth quarter was a knock down, drag out type of fight as the Jayhawks found themselves leading 17-14 with their backs against the wall as the Sun Devils had the ball at the one-yard line of Kansas.
Enter stage right, Mr. Cameron Skattebo, the heartbeat of Sun Devil football for the last year and a half. Early in the contest, Skattebo was productive averaging 7.8 yards per carry on eight carries but saw his usage lower as the third quarter went on. That would not be the case in the fourth quarter as the first snap of the quarter saw Skattebo lineup in their aptly named “Wildskatt” package and rush in a touchdown to give the Sun Devils the four point lead just four seconds into the quarter.
“I think we kept Skat fresh for the end of the game, which was the goal,” Arizona State coach Kenny Dillingham said.
Following the score, the floodgates would open as Kansas would start attacking Arizona State in the run game. Entering tonight the Jayhawks were one of the worst second half rushing teams in college football averaging less than 80 yards on the ground in the half per contest and tonight it appeared as the trend would continue as Kansas only had 20 yards in the third quarter.
Jalon Daniels started the drive with a designed quarterback run to the right that set up Devin Neal for another first down himself and the duo attacked on the ground before Neal gashed the Sun Devil defensive line up the middle for a 31-yard touchdown run that quickly ripped the lead back from the Sun Devils.
The rushing attack of the Sun Devils quickly went to work themselves as Sam Leavitt began to escape the pocket and pick up yardage but just as was the case in the Mississippi State matchup earlier in the year, Dillingham went to Skattebo.
“When we got to 11 minutes left I said, ‘Hey, this is Skat time. Like, let’s get him the ball here, a little bit here in this fourth quarter,’ like obviously still mix it up, but this is the time where we tried to keep him fresher and not play as many snaps,” Dillingham said.
As Skattebo marched the Devils down the field, the Jayhawks began to stack the box to sell out and stop the run and immediately Leavitt found a wide open Jordyn Tyson in the corner of the end zone to take the lead right back.
Kansas copied the same script on their following drive, this time using Daniel Hishaw alongside Neal and Daniels to move the ball down the field on the ground. However, the drive was aided by a targeting penalty on a dead ball play on Clayton Smith who’ll now be out for the first half of next week's game against Utah. Right away, Daniels uncorked a 34-yard deep ball to Quentin Skinner who pulled in his second touchdown reception of the game and gave Kansas a 31-28 lead with 2:04 to go.
The game had played out similarly to last season’s matchup against Colorado where every positive play by the Devils was responded to for Colorado and where Arizona State lost a heartbreaker 24-21.
But the theme of this year continues to be “These are not the same Sun Devils from before”
With the game on the line and only one timeout to spare, the Sun Devils started with the ball at their own 25-yard line. And just as they’ve done all year and had all fourth quarter, Skattebo took the handoff 39 yards to immediately set Arizona State up in field goal range with 1:41 remaining. With the defense selling out to stop Skattebo, Leavitt began to use his legs again rushing for 18 yards on the drive setting up first and goal at the three yard line with 20 seconds to go.
Just as earlier in the quarter, Leavitt dropped back and found Tyson in the end zone for what would be the game winning touchdown.
Looking Ahead
The Sun Devils, at 4-1, will have the eyes of college football fans around the country on them as they welcome a ranked Utah team for a standalone Friday night primetime matchup in the annual “Blackout” game.
The key thing in this matchup will be how well can the defense hold up for the first half. With Clayton Smith and Keyshaun Elliott both out for the first half after being ejected in the second half against Kansas, it’ll be interesting to see how Arizona State responds to a Utah team that is expected to have quarterback Cam Rising back and healthy leading the Utes offense.
It’ll also be key for the Devils to get the run game going as Utah has done a stellar job at stopping running backs most notably Ollie Gordon at Oklahoma State when those two teams matched up earlier this year.
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