Washington State at Arizona State
You have to admire the way Washington State is dealing with the firing of their head coach and four assistants. They came into Tempe a two touchdown underdog and ended up soundly beating the Sun Devils by 13, 34-21. Philosophy and attitude begins at the top and their new head coach Jake Dickert, with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in math and general education, has one that 247sports.com calls “straight forward and illuminating.” In an October 4th article for CougFan Dickert talked about his philosophy towards coaching and some of the details that go into it and decribed it as, “to possess a genuine appreciation for the effort and commitment that everyone makes. Coaching is teaching and a lot of people forget that. I’m teaching a class and it’s football. And I make notes for them, I make diagrams for them. We walk through, we teach. And you have to understand how to relate to people. And everybody is different.” What he said makes so much sense as his original goal in life was always to be a teacher, following in his father’s footsteps who was a high school teacher and coach.
The heads of Arizona State must have been spinning by the end of the 1st Qtr as the Cougars had already forced three turnover, two fumbles and an interception, two of which led to Washington State TD’s and a 14-0 lead. Even when the Cougars had a turnover of their own the Sun Devils couldn’t convert, missing a 32 yard field goal which was followed by another Washington State TD, Arizona State fumble, and yet another Cougar TD to go up 28-0 with less than two minutes left in the half. The Sun Devils finally settled down and scored a TD before the break at the end of an eleven play 78 yard drive on a Daniels 12 yard pass to Freshman WR LV Bunkley-Shelton.
Sun Devil Junior QB Jayden Daniels was 23-of-35 on the day for 228 yards, 1 TD, and 2 picks while their Sophomore QB connected for three-of-four for 47 yards, 1 TD, and no interceptions. On the ground Arizona State ran 32 times for 131 yards with most of those and their one rushing TD belonging to Sophomore RB Deamonte Trayanum. For the Cougars Sophomore QB Jayden de Laura was 17-of-27 for 234 yards, 2 TD’s, and 1 interception in addition to picking up one of two rushing TD’s with Senior RB Deon Macintosh picking up the other and combining with Senior RB Max Borghi for the majority of their 166 yards on the ground.
After all the excitement of the first half things quieted down considerably as the 3rd Qtr started out with five consecutive punts and the score still 28-7 at the start of the 4th. The Cougars finally put a few more points on the board after a Jayden Daniels interception on the Arizona State 33 yard line. Six plays later Place Kicker Dean Janikowski tacked on three more points for the Cougars on a 40 yard field goal. Washington State got the ball back after holding the Sun Devils to a three-and-out and Janikowski added three more, this time from 32 yards out. Arizona State finally felt the need to work quickly and were able to put up a couple of bookend TD’s around yet another Janiowski field goal, with their 2nd TD leaving just 28 seconds left on the game clock. Final score 34-21.
The Sun Devils, who for a while looked as though they were easilly going to take the PAC-12 South, within the last two weeks have lost the tie breaker with now first place Utah and dropped an additional game back with this loss to Washington State. The Cougars in the mean time are now 2nd in the North, one game behind Oregon who they play this coming week. After watching their intensity and focus in the win over Arizona State I wouldn’t count them out against the Ducks—could be quite a game.
Colorado at Oregon
The only thing worse than playing Oregon is playing Oregon at home in Autzen Stadium in Eugene. The Ducks wasted no time, up 14-0 at the end of the 1st Qtr and continued to score every time they had the ball in the first half which included 4 TD’s and 1 field goal then following that up with scores on three of four possessions after the break. This on a day in which their QB Anthony Brown threw for a record 307 yards and 3 TD’s in a dominating 52-29 victory over Colorado. Their RB Travis Dye, hero of their win over UCLA, had another great day while running for two of their four rushing TD’s as well as collecting one in the air. All toll, the Ducks collected a season high 568 total yards of offense including 32 first downs while converting on 70 percent of their third down attempts.
Freshman QB Brendon Lewis was clean for the Buffaloes connecting on 25-of-33 for 3 TD’s and no interceptions while they rushed 30 times for 117 yards and one more score by Junior RB Alex Fontenot. Colorado came back in the 2nd Qtr with 14 points of their own, but the Ducks added 17 to the scoreboard to make it 31-14 at the half. Oregon added 14 more in the third and 7 in the 4th. Colorado put up 15 in the final period but all it did was make the scoreboard look a little more respectable in a clear blowout on a day in which Oregon was firing on all cylinders.
Head Coach Mario Cristobal commented afterwards on his team when playing healthy. “I think we showed that when we’re playing our starters, and when we play and execute, we’re really a good football team. And I think what makes us good is that we know we can get a lot better. That’s the best way to put it: It’s a hungry driven team. We did some really good things today, [but there are] some other things that we can do better.” Even though the Buffaloes were way over-matched Head Coach Karl Dorrell had positive things to say about his team as well: “I felt that this team played hard overall [and] thought offensively we made some tough plays in some critical moments. We had some fourth downs we had to go for, had to extend some plays and we made those plays. The receivers, tight ends, backs, all, I thought they played hard, ran hard.”
With Arizona still winless, Colorado is one notch above in fifth place in the PAC-12 South. At this point the PAC-12 North is Oregon’s to lose but they have yet to play the two teams below them including what looks right now to be a very dangerous Washington State team as well as Oregon State who beat them last year. Next week the Ducks will take a trip North to Alaska Airlines Husky Stadium to take on Washington while Colorado will head back to Boulder to host an Oregon State team that should finally become bowl eligible for the first time since 2013.