Defending Big 12 champion Arizona State, coming off a win at Baylor on a last-second field goal, will face No. 24 TCU on Friday night at Tempe, Ariz., in a matchup of what likely will be two of the conference’s top teams this season.
The Horned Frogs (3-0 overall) will open their Big 12 slate after defeating North Carolina on the road, followed by in-state wins at home against Abilene Christian and SMU.
Arizona State (3-1, 1-0) started its conference play victorious last week at Baylor, 27-24, behind the passing combination of Sam Leavitt and Jordyn Tyson and the game-winning, 43-yard field goal by Jesus Gomez.
Leavitt completed seven passes to Tyson, for 43 yards and a touchdown. Leavitt finished 22 of 32 for 221 yards and the TD, with no interceptions.
The 19-yard scoring strike to Tyson with 5:29 to play put Arizona State ahead 24-17 before Baylor drove for a touchdown on the following possession. Leavitt then engineered an 11-play, 49-yard drive in the last 1:52 that set up Gomez’s field goal as time expired.
Arizona State finished with 400 total yards; the Sun Devils are averaging 406 yards a game this season.
Aside from Leavitt’s passing production, he rushed for 62 yards on 15 carries with a touchdown, and Raleek Brown amassed 80 yards on 21 carries, but Arizona State coach Kenny Dillingham said he wasn’t completely satisfied with his team’s performance.
The Sun Devils settled for four field goals by Gomez, which prompted Dillingham to say in his Monday press conference: “We kicked four field goals. It just pains me to say it out loud. Like, golly, how do we kick four field goals? That’s usually not a recipe for success. It also shows the amount of drives we put together on offense, the ball control we created on offense, all of those positives.”
Former walk-on Derek Eusebio helped with that ball control, catching a 61-yard pass on a third-and-13 play at the Arizona State 13 that led to Leavitt’s touchdown pass to Tyson.
As for TCU, Josh Hoover is coming off a career-high five-touchdown performance in a 35-24 win over SMU. Hoover completed 22 of 40 passes for 379 yards, with one interception.
Horned Frogs coach Sonny Dykes said he wasn’t pleased about his team’s lack of discipline and Hoover’s interception in the end zone, which ended TCU’s threat at the SMU 17 with his team leading 14-10 late in the first half.
TCU was penalized nine times for 65 yards, prolonging some of the Mustangs’ possessions.
“We played hard today, and we did some good things, but you can’t throw a pick in the end zone, and then you can’t stop them in a critical situation and get an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty,” Dykes said. “That’s what losing football teams do. We were able to overcome those things, but we can’t do that on Friday. We’ve got a lot of things to learn.”
The Hoover-to-Eric McAlister connection will set up a matchup with Arizona State’s Leavitt-to-Tyson pair.
McAlister caught eight passes for a career-best 254 yards and three touchdowns against SMU.
The two programs are meeting for the first time in 50 years; they did not meet in the Sun Devils’ first year in the Big 12 last season.
Arizona State won the only two games played in the series in 1974 and 1975.
