Let’s begin with the excellent news for Arizona State — its 28-23 win over BYU on Saturday saved its School Soccer Playoff hopes alive and retains the Solar Devils within the driver’s seat for a Large 12 championship.
It’s a monster win for the season and this system. On the finish of the day, that’s all that issues.
However Arizona State practically gave the sport away within the remaining seconds with a fully absurd sequence of performs which will have been the best instance of a coach outsmarting himself and overthinking the method.
After an interception gave Arizona State the soccer on the BYU 7-yard line with 58 seconds to play, the Solar Devils ran one play all the way down to the 3-yard line. As an alternative of simply attempting to attain a landing and make it a two-score recreation with lower than 50 seconds to play, Arizona State as an alternative opted to run a number of performs backward to take as a lot day without work the clock as potential.
It resulted within the Solar Devils shifting the ball all the best way again to the BYU 49-yard line for a fourth-down play with seven seconds on the clock.
As an alternative of punting it, Arizona State requested quarterback Sam Leavitt to easily throw the ball as excessive and much as he might to run off the remaining time.
It appeared to work. The clock hit zero and Arizona State followers stormed the sector in celebration.
The one downside is that the ball landed within the stands with one second remaining on the clock.