Arizona State at Utah
Just when it looked like Arizona State was going to run away with the South, Utah’s 35-21 win over the Sun Devils at home in Salt Lake puts them in first place—for now. But with games against Oregon State, UCLA, Stanford, and Oregon in their future, the South is far from decided with both of these teams still in the mix along with Chip Kelly’s Bruins who could still end up on top.
The QB’s were pretty much mirror images of each other in this one with Utah’s Cameron Rising throwing for 247 yards, 2 TD’s, as well as rushing for 59 yards and another score while Arizona State’s Jayden Daniels threw for 237 yards, 2 TD’s, and also rushed for a TD while picking up 32 yards on the ground. Both teams got out quickly with each scoring a TD on their first possession before going three and out on their next. Then both stumbled, Arizona State with a fumble and Utah with an interception that led to a Sun Devil TD and a 14-7 lead that blew up–scoring again after holding the Utes to another three and out.
Trailing by 14 at the half, 21-7, Utah came back after the break to score TD’s on four consecutive possessions, two in the air and two on the ground, while holding the Sun Devils scoreless to overcome the deficit and win the game. The Utah defense really stepped up and became very disruptive in the 2nd half, holding the Sun Devils to less than 100 yards while picking up 4 sacks and 7 tackles for loss on the day. Regarding that second half, Arizona State Head Coach Herm Edwards had this to say; “They continued to make first downs, they went on substantial drives, and we couldn’t get [our defense] off the field and it kills you, it puts you in a bad way.”
Utah is gearing up it’s offense just in time as they’ll be on the road to Corvallis to take on the Oregon State Beavers who are leading the PAC-12 in points scored per game and yards rushing. Arizona State will get a bye week to mull this one over before hosting the Cougars on October 30th.
Arizona at Colorado
For any PAC-12 team that needs a quick fix of confidence just challenge the Arizona Wildcats—they’re more than happy to accomodate. In the case of their game in Boulder against Colorado, they bent over backwards and celebrated their national record setting 18 game losing streak with a 34-0 shutout. In spite of all their help Colorado was kinda slow to get started, only up 3-0 after the 1st Qtr and 6-0 at the break–maybe thinking that the Wildcats weren’t that serious about losing. But the Buffalo offense finally got into the swing of things in the 3rd Qtr, scoring 21 points and then another TD in the 4th.
The most yards collected for Arizona in this game was by Sophomore Kyle Ostendorp who punted 7 times for 365 yards. The Wildcats used two different Freshman QB’s, Gunner Cruz and Will Plummer, both of whom passed for less than 100 yards, no TD’s, and 1 pick each. They rushed 31 times with Freshman RB Jalen John getting the majority of carries and 71 of the team’s total 127 yards in an offensive effort that yielded no points and a field position that didn’t even allow a field goal attempt.
Colorado’s Freshman QB Brendon Lewis connected on 12-of-19 for 248 yards, 2 TD’s and no interceptions. The Buffalo run-by-committee approach accounted for 117 yards on 39 attempts but never made it into the end zone. But in back-to-back plays early in the 3rd Qtr Wildcats had a punt blocked that Colorado returned for a TD and then threw up a pick six just five plays later to push the score up to 20-0. Colorado would pick up another TD on their next possession and then one more after an interception about half-way through the 4th.
Fighting off their own four game losing streak, Buffalo Head Coach Karl Dorrell was definitely taking the win seriously afterwards and said; “With everything we’ve been working on the last couple of weeks with our bye it was good to see that it paid off in a convincing fashion. This is a really good win for us as a program because all three areas scored touchdowns.” Neither team will have an easy time of it this coming weekend with Arizona heading back home to host Washington on Friday while Colorado hits the road to take on Cal.