TEMPE, Ariz. – Welcome to a game of EA Sports’ NCAA Football 2006, courtesy of Arizona State, with gameplay set on “beginner” and Northwestern playing the part of the slaughtered CPU opponent.
In this game the passes fly and holes open as wide as the desert sky, as the pixels on the screen form a one-sided fireworks show. Except, Saturday night, there were no pixels – only real players.
The No. 18 Sun Devils (2-1) torched the Wildcats (2-1) for 52 points and 773 yards – 532 in the first half – as coach Dirk Koetter’s team smashed records and exposed an already questionable defense in the Cats’ 52-21 loss at Sun Devil Stadium.
“(It was) a lot of missed assignments and miscues,” junior cornerback Marquice Cole said. “We just shot ourselves in the foot today.”
The Sun Devils’ 773 yards set Arizona State’s all-time single-game record for total offense and the Cats’ all-time single-game record for total offense allowed. The previous record against the Cats was 713 yards, set by Iowa in 1983.
NU coach Randy Walker, whose Cats fell to Arizona State 30-21 at home last year, said it all started with a bad practice week. Cole called the Tuesday practice “horrible,” saying it looked like the team took the day off.
It all bled into the game. The front seven failed to record a sack for the second straight week, the secondary left several open receivers and the defense missed countless tackles as Arizona State shook off last week’s 35-31 loss to No. 5 LSU.
Early on the Cats looked like coyotes under an Arizona full moon. They forced the Sun Devils to punt on their first two possessions and took a 7-0 lead, on senior quarterback Brett Basanez’s seven-yard touchdown pass to junior wide receiver Shaun Herbert.
Quarterback Sam Keller, running back Keegan Herring and the rest of the Arizona State offense woke up soon after and tore through the NU defense like it wasn’t there. The Sun Devils scored their first touchdown with less than two minutes to go in the first quarter – and then scored on their next five possessions to build a 38-14 halftime lead.
“It’s all about responding in this game, and I felt like they responded after the first two series,” senior defensive tackle Barry Cofield said. “They came back punching. And when they punched us back, we didn’t respond.”
Keller, a junior who made his starting debut with a 370-yard, three-touchdown performance against Purdue in last year’s Sun Bowl, continued to emerge as one of the nation’s potentially elite quarterbacks. He completed 20 of 31 passes for 409 yards and four touchdowns, with 343 of his yards and three touchdowns coming in the first half. He left early in the fourth quarter with the score 45-21.
Herring ran for 197 yards on 23 carries, falling three yards shy of becoming the second straight runner to gain more than 200 yards on the Cats – Northern Illinois’ Garrett Wolfe ran for 245 last week. Several other Sun Devil backs added to the attack, giving ASU 290 yards on the ground.
“They had a great offense,” Cole said. “They had a great scheme, a good quarterback, good receivers.”
NU’s vaunted offense failed to keep up, totaling 416 yards and falling behind 35-14 before Basanez was pulled in favor of redshirt freshman C.J. Bacher.
Basanez completed 24 of 37 passes for 224 yards and two touchdowns, both to Herbert. True freshman Tyrell Sutton ran 15 times for 98 yards but did not carry the ball in the last 23 minutes of the game and only carried three times in the first quarter.
Bacher threw his first-career touchdown pass, a 12-yarder to true freshman receiver Rasheed Ward – Ward’s first touchdown reception.
The Cats’ defense now must improve before next week’s Big Ten opener against Penn State in Evanston. NU won 14-7 last year in Happy Valley but has miles to go to keep that from being a first-quarter score after allowing 1,275 yards and 89 points in the last two games.
“We gave up a lot of yards and a lot of points, and these two weeks are a big learning experience going into the Big Ten season,” senior linebacker Tim McGarigle said. “I think (we’ll) be all right, though.”
Reach Patrick Dorsey at [email protected].
