As pointed out by AZCentral in their article about this game for the Arizona Republic; “Arizona State’s latest Pac-12 showdown was a unique one. Not only did it feature games between two teams headed by interim coaches, but it also was one in which both schools started their backup quarterback.” J. T. Shrout who came in for Colorado starting QB Owen McCown in the 3rd Qtr of their game against Cal a couple of weeks ago started this one for the Buffaloes while Trenton Bourguet got the nod from Interim Head Coach Shaun Aguano in place of Emory Jones who had a tough time of it against Stanford the previous week. Neither disappointed and after an 89 yard kick-off return for TD by Colorado’s Jordyn Tyson with less than four minutes left it was a single possession game with the Sun Devils on top 42-34 where it stayed.
After holding Colorado to a three-and-out on their first possession of the game Arizona State got out in front on an 8 play 64 yard drive ending wih a Xazavian Valladay short TD run to go up 7-0 early in the 1st Qtr. Colorado came back with a field goal 10 plays later to close the gap but the Sun Devils would score again on Bourguet’s first TD pass of the night, 12 yards to Jalin Conyers to go up 14-3. But every time Arizona State pulled away Colorado found a way to come back, this time on a 7 yard J. T. Shrout pass to Lemonious-Craig early in the 2nd Qtr to get within four at 14-10 and again after another Valladay TD run, this time for 47 yards, to make it 21-17 on a 58 yard J. T. Shrout TD pass to Jordyn Tyson. But after that the Sun Devils started pulling away, scoring again with under a minute left in the half on Valladay’s third TD run of the game to go up 28-17 at the break.
Having won the toss and deferring to the 2nd half the Sun Devils got the ball to start the 3rd Qtr but were held to a three-and-out giving the Buffaloes a great opportunity to close the gap again but they couldn’t get it done and on Arizona State’s 2nd possession after the break they took a 35-17 lead on Bourguet’s 2nd TD of the night once again to Jalin Conyers, an easy target to find and hard to bring down at 6’ 5” and 265 lbs. After being held to a three-and-out on their next possession Colorado had a chance to close it back up after intercepting a Bourguet pass with over five minutes left in the 3rd Qtr but could only muster a field goal and then lost the ball with an interception of their own on their next possession which led to the third Bourguet-to-Conyers TD connection of the night and a 42-20 lead for the Sun Devils. 14 plays and 71 yards later Colorado would run it in on a 3rd and goal from the 1 yard line to make it 42-27 followed by a punt-return for TD after forcing Arizona State into a 4th and 5 at the ASU 48 yard line on their next possession. With the score down to a single possession at 42-34 and just under four minutes left the Sun Devils were able to pick up a couple of first downs and run the clock out to win what turned out to be quite a game.