(Photo: Nicholas Badders/WCSN)
TEMPE – Arizona State tried to make it a special homecoming game. The school planned a “Stripe Out” for its fans in the stands, hoping to adorn Sun Devil Stadium in streaks of Maroon and Gold. The team was planning a victory over No. 21 USC, a triumph that would have bolstered its conference championship bid.
Those hopes turned into delusions of grandeur against the Trojans. The reality was a dismantling 48-17 loss.
Despite big expectations, ASU (4-4, 3-2 in Pac-12) was stagnant from the start. A two-game winning streak over Washington and Utah had fueled expectations, setting up Saturday’s showdown with USC (7-2, 5-1 in Pac-12) as the program’s chance to solidify itself as a Pac-12 contender and the fan-base’s shot to validate its commitment in the stands.
Both failed.
“Any week in the Pac-12 you don’t come out and play your best, that’s going to happen to you,” ASU coach Todd Graham said.
By the time Trojans’ running back Ronald Jones II put the game out of reach with a 64-yard touchdown run early in the third quarter, the once-full Inferno student section had dwindled by half, while most of the remaining 53,446-person crowd abandoned the ambitious Stripe Out plan.
After three weeks of near-perfection for the program, nearly nothing went right on Saturday night.
“We got outplayed,” Graham said. “Tonight USC was a better team than us, they outplayed us and they out-coached us.”
In maybe its most important game of the season, all of ASU’s pre-bye-week problems returned.
Poor run defense and even worse tackling – staples of ASU’s bumpy 2-3 start to the season – let USC’s junior running back Jones collect a monstrous 216 yards and 2 touchdowns. He averaged 12 yards per carry. He rarely went down easily.
“When you get frustrated, you reach instead of being fluid in your tackling,” defensive coordinator Phil Bennett said. “What (Jones) does, he sucks in then he creases out and you’ve got to stay true.”
Bennett said that’s how Jones scored his 64-yard touchdown, when he galloped through a deflated ASU defense. Earlier in the game, he scored a similar 67-yard jaunt. Too elusive and too fast.
As a team, the Trojans registered six plays of 30-plus yards plus a 37-yard interception return touchdown by Tkili Ross in the dying minutes of the game off backup ASU quarterback Blake Barnett.
Salt in the wound. Insult to injury. The perfect end to a far-from-perfect performance from ASU.
“They’ve got really good skill players and they were very physical on the outside,” Graham said. “We dominated the line of scrimmage [in recent weeks] on defense; we didn’t do that tonight and we gave up big plays. That was the difference.”
Perhaps the most skilled player in USC’s stable is quarterback Sam Darnold. The NFL-bound talent picked apart the Sun Devils’ secondary with his strong arm and accurate touch. It amounted to completions on 19 of his 35 throws, 266 yards and 3 touchdowns, all of which were passes of at least 19 yards.
After getting blown out by rival Notre Dame last week, USC coach Clay Helton saw the kind of offensive performance that has often eluded his team this year.
“I know I talk about balance all the time,” he said. “That was balance.”
Forced to match scores with the Trojans, the Sun Devils’ offense was a non-starter. In the first half, 117 of ASU’s 149 yards came on two plays: a 70-yard catch by N’Keal Harry and a last-play 47-yard hail-mary touchdown pass to Kyle Williams.
Beyond that, ASU had little to show for. In offensive coordinator Billy Napier’s estimate, it was his unit’s worst game of the season.
“We just never really got the ball rolling, early in particular,” he said.
Pass protection breakdowns were back on display, stifling the Sun Devils on third downs especially. ASU converted just one of its 12 third down tries. Quarterback Manny Wilkins was the victim, dragged down for six sacks by an injury-depleted Trojan pass rush.
When the offensive line did hold up, ASU’s playmakers went missing. Wilkins struggled with accuracy early in the game, completing just two of his first 10 passes. His weapons didn’t provide much help either. Dependable slot target Jalen Harvey had only one reception, while Harry caught just two more balls for 16 yards after his 70-yard grab in the first quarter. Williams was the only ASU receiver to go over 100 yards receiving.
“They had a good plan,” ASU offensive coordinator Billy Napier said. “They tilted the coverage (Harry’s) way, double him quite a bit.”
Hours before the game, the Sun Devils’ tail back tandem of Demario Richard and Kalen Ballage was effectively cut in half when Ballage got sick with a stomach bug. Richard carried the running game load and battled for all 70 of his yards in the game — of his 15 attempts, only one went for more than eight yards. Ballage on the other hand touched the ball on offense once: a two-yard catch late in the third quarter.
“We had no rhythm on offense at all,” Graham said.
ASU was given a temporary lifeline at the end of the first half Williams’ came up with the tipped hail-mary ball, getting his hands on it just in time to break the plane. The Sun Devils got the ball to start the third quarter too and scored on a 1-yard run from Wilkins, cutting USC’s lead to two scores. It turned out to be the last time ASU tacked on points; USC added 17 more before the night was done.
As USC safety Chris Hawkins put it: “We had nothing to lose.”
The difference of mindset and talent was clear.
Clearer than the undistinguished effort to stripe-out the stadium. Easier to understand than ASU’s roller-coaster season. Once USC got rolling – scoring touchdowns on three of its first five possessions – ASU had no answer.
“We never could slow them down and stop them,” Graham said.
Added Wilkins: “Respect to them for playing the way they played. They came out, they played hard, they wanted it.”
