BYU’s rushing attack spent Saturday looking for somewhere to go and finding Arizona State waiting there. The Cougars finished with 47 rushing yards on 30 attempts, an anemic 1.6-yard average. Sione Moa managed 20 yards on eight carries, while quarterback Bear Bachmeier averaged less than a yard per attempt as a runner.
That made Arizona State’s 27-20 loss especially frustrating. The Tempe program held BYU’s ground game in check, and Cardae Mack gave a freshman-led offense a credible counterpunch with 123 yards on 23 carries and five receptions for 47 yards. The Sun Devils had enough defense and just enough offense to make the upset plausible.
They also made the margin for error smaller than it needed to be.
The first error arrived on the opening possession. Mack began with runs of 9 and 3 yards, moving Arizona State to its own 37. On first-and-10, true freshman quarterback Jake Fette was sacked for an 8-yard loss and fumbled.
BYU recovered at the ASU 29, then needed six plays to cover 29 yards before Sione Moa recovered a fumble in the end zone for the opening touchdown.
The score was costly because BYU had not yet demonstrated that it could consistently move the ball against Arizona State’s front. The same possession included a revealing goal-line sequence. Roger Saleapaga II appeared to score on a catch, but replay ruled that he was down at the 1.
Bachmeier then gained nothing on first-and-goal, and BYU eventually scored when Moa recovered the loose ball. A short-field touchdown still counts seven points, even when the offense has to borrow the ball from its defense.
Arizona State kept making BYU work after that. Owen Long broke up a pass during a second-quarter scoring threat, and Jalen Thompson recorded a sack on the drive that ended with Matthias Dunn’s 28-yard field goal. With 51 seconds left in the first half, Montana Warren intercepted Bachmeier at the ASU 17 after BYU had moved from its own 25 to the ASU 32.
By halftime each team had lost the ball once, but Arizona State’s takeaway produced no points while its opening mistake produced seven for BYU.
The Cougars led 17-3 at halftime, a score that overstated how comfortably they had run the game. BYU finished with 283 total yards, just four more than Arizona State’s 279, and its passing game supplied 236 of those yards. That was the appropriate route for BYU against a defense that had made rushing miserable.
The problem for Arizona State was that a defense can dictate the preferred method without guaranteeing the final result.
Fette and Mack gave the Sun Devils a chance to turn that defensive work into something tangible. Their third-quarter touchdown drive traveled 81 yards in 13 plays. Mack’s 5-yard run on second-and-1 helped keep the possession moving, and Fette converted third-and-2 from the BYU 48 with a 9-yard keeper.
