#53 Arizona State

Tempe, AZ

Sun Devil Stadium

October 8, 2021

Arizona State 28 - Stanford 10 (ESPN Recap)

Snuck in a quick game at Sun Devil stadium in Tempe with my wife on the Friday before a Sat/Sun wedding weekend in Scottsdale. It was technically a repeat stadium for me, but I had to make the return trip to see an ASU home game as the 2012 Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl between TCU and Mich St doesn’t count for the mission.

There is virtually no tailgate scene that we could find, though plenty of packed Mill Ave bars and restaurants with everyone wearing maroon and gold. C.A.S.A. seemed like the place to be if you got there early enough. The condo buildings along the walk to the stadium also were hosting private party and common area events that were not open to the public but were visible. Looked like a fun time of watching Des Ridder absolutely terrorize and embarrass Temple.

The ASU alumni association hosted a large and free party a block from the stadium which had games, blow up creatures, cash bar, and a couple of food trucks. Cool family-friendly environment and oddly nailed a 4-bagger on my only four throws of the night (but from 15 feet). It was a big "Fork" vs. "Tree" game.

I am glad I committed to the repeat: totally different experience for an ASU game and it felt like I had never been there before. High energy for the night game between two recently hot Pac 12 teams. Strong volume from the non-sellout fans and well-executed AV work by the stadium operators. As kickoff approached, my wife thought it was the championship game because of all the pomp and circumstance. Only critique of the experience was the extreme adherence to their bag policy for my wife (but not for people who had massive clear tote bags and put whatever they wanted inside those. Their bags were clear so size did not matter even if what was inside the clear bag was large bags that were not empty like my wife's bag. We had some really fun conversations with the security and police that felt like an Excel circular reference. Had to sneak the empty bag in under my shirt.).

The game was dominated by Arizona State’s defense, which was a brick wall against the run, made key 3rd and long stops, and had a few key takeaways. I won the “No Score 1st 5:30 of game” bet, lost the pregame Stanford +13 bet, but won the in-game Stanford +22 bet. I also split side bets with a stranger two seats over from me. First bet he won was that Stanford would end their series with a punt after getting +40 field position to start their drive. Second bet I won was that ASU’s dynamic QB would not throw or pass the ball on the 4th and 1 from midfield in the second half. More impressively, the same stranger bet his friend that a subsequent Stanford series would result in a pick-6 for ASU and commanded 10:1 odds for the bet (woefully underpricing his terrible prediction). And I gotta tell you, when the pick-6 happened three plays into the drive, I almost fell out of my seat both because of the bet and because it was the best play I’ve seen live all season. The ASU CB jumped the route, made a great catch, fought off the Stanford receiver for 2-3 seconds while securing the ball and then flipped it underhand to his teammate who housed it from 26 yards out. It cost me the Stanford +13 bet but I couldn’t even be mad about it.

QB1 for ASU is shifty and athletic. Jayden Daniels seemed to always tuck and run to pick up the key 1st downs for the Sun Devils. Really underrated player!

The last point I want to make is that ASU has a complex when it comes to playing Stanford (and I assume it applies to Cal too...). There was a lot of unsolicited, angry, and defensive insults about Stanford being an elite institution…and then pointing out a sack or penalty and calling them not so smart for the mistake. Maybe Stanford gets this all the time or maybe it is an ASU thing, but Stanford fans never engaged or said one negative thing the entire game that we heard. One Stanford parent in our section exacerbated the taunting purely based on his t-shirt collection. This “Home of Intellectual Brutality” t-shirt resulted in an earful after every negative Stanford play and every positive ASU play (at least 30 taunts). Lines included:

“Where’s your intellectual brutality NOW?” (when Stanford threw an incomplete pass on 3rd down) “How about that for INTELLECTUAL BRUTALITY!” (when ASU scored) “Oh! Holding! So much for beating us with intellectual brutality!” (after a Stanford penalty)

"He missed the field goal. So much for the kicker having intellectual brutality!" “What kind of a dickwad wears an intellectual brutality shirt to a college football game? What does that even mean?!” (said multiple times randomly during TV timeouts) “Have you had enough intellectual brutality?!” (as the game was clearly out of reach mid Q4 ETC, ETC

All of these were said loud enough for the dad to hear them. He never looked back once.

Off to Chapel Hill next weekend to check in on boyfriend #2 of the season, Sammy Howell.