He had not decided as of last week but 2nd year Arizona State head coach, Kenny Dillingham, decided to start his 6’ 2” red-shirt freshman Sam Leavitt who connected on over 60% of his passes for 258 yards, 2 TD’s, and no interceptions while also rushing eight times for another 47. Besides Leavitt, the Sun Devils rushed six other players multiple times for a total of 241 yards on 49 attempts with Senior RB’s Sam Skattebo and DeCarlos Brooks both making it into the end zone.
This game was never in doubt from the get-go and started off with a bang as Junior Linebacker Cyrus Fiaseu picked off Wyoming’s starting QB Evan Svoboda less than a minute into the game and ran it back to the house. The Sun Devils were up 17-0 at the end of the 1st Qtr., 27 zip at the half, and 48-0 at the end of three. Wyoming didn’t score any points in this one until the Sun Devil starters were on the bench and the game was almost over. As the AP put it in their Recap for ESPN; “The Cowboys avoided the shutout when Kaden Anderson threw a 3-yard touchdown pass to Chris Durr with two seconds remaining.”
Wyoming Junior QB Evan Svoboda had a pretty horrendous game connecting on just 40% of his passes for 42 yards and 2 interceptions while Freshman Kaden Anderson showed a lot more promise going 4-of-5 for 36 yards, 1 TD, and no picks. On the ground the Cowboys were equally as dismal rushing 32 times for a mere 40 yards. The Sun Devils had the upper edge in 1st downs, 27-8 and total yards, 499-118 to go along with an extra quarter’s worth time-of-possession.
As I mentioned last week, prior to getting hired to take over for a fired Herm Edwards at Arizona State, Kenny Dillingham–the youngest head coach in college football–had developed a well respected reputation as one of the best offensive coordinators in the country. First at Memphis where he put together back-to-back Top 5 offenses during his two year tenure; then at Auburn where he led the most improved offense in the SEC and helped Bo Nix become the SEC Rookie of the Year; and finally at Oregon under Dan Lanning where he led the 10th best offense in the nation. They’ve certainly proved they can easily score against Wyoming and that had to feel good after being selected to finish last in the conference in the Big-12 Media poll. But this next Saturday they’ll be playing host to the SEC’s Mississippi State, and that’s a whole different animal.