Coming in with a pre-season record of 2-0 Arizona opened up their Big-12 schedule on the road against Kansas State and although they took an early 7-0 lead on their first possession of the game on a 14 play, 74 yard drive and rushing TD by RB Quali Conley, they didn’t score another point the rest of the way. Kansas State would tie the score on their subsequent possession at the end of a 15 play 75 yard drive and TD pass from Sophomore QB Avery Johnson to Senior Tight End Will Swanson and then take a 14-7 lead into the break at the top of the 2nd Qtr on a 71 yard punt returned for TD by Sophomore RB Dylan Edwards. Kansas State would score two more TD’s in the third and connect on a field goal in the fourth to win it going away 31-7.
After averaging over 195+ yards rushing over their first two games, Arizona State was only able to manage 56 yards on 19 carries with Senior RB Quali Conley rushing 14 times for 85% of the total. Sophomore QB Noah Fafita connected on 65% of his passes for 268 yards and an interception but never found the end zone. For Kansas State, QB Avery Johnson connected on 14-of-23 for 156 yards and 2 TD’s–both to his Tight Ends–as well as rushed 17 times for almost half of the 237 total yards on the ground. Junior RB DJ Giddens and Edwards picked up the rest, rushing 23 times for 127 yards and a TD by Giddens.
Kansas State led all the way with 21 first downs to 16; 393 total yards of offense compared to 324; were successful better than 50% of the time on third down against 35% for Arizona State while also getting the benefit of 74 yards gained from nine penalties—almost half of those on a single drive before the break. In a rare in-conference match-up that won’t count the AP explained it as follows in their write-up for ESPN: “The schools had agreed to the match-up before Arizona left the Pac-12 for the Big 12. With neither able to secure a replacement opponent, Kansas State and Arizona kept the game but without it counting in the race for the league title game.” Fortunately for Arizona they have a bye week coming up which will give them a chance to correct their mistakes before taking on No. 12 Utah who was picked in the preseason to win the Big-12.