TEMPE, Ariz. – Arizona State opened the season as 29.5-point home favorites against Northen Arizona. Although ASU football didn’t cover the spread, or play its best ball on Saturday night, the Sun Devils got the job done.
ASU had Mountain America Stadium rocking early. The Sun Devils scored touchdowns on each of their first two drives to go up 14-0 early, in front of a sold-out home crowd.
However, ASU slowed down after that and NAU began to move the ball. The Lumberjacks’ next two drives ended in Sun Devils’ territory. NAU turned it over on downs in the red zone and kicked a field goal. Meanwhile, ASU had three straight drives end in punts.
The Lumberjacks outscored the Sun Devils 6-3 in the final 20 minutes of the first half and trailed by just 11 points at halftime.
ASU started the second half with fireworks. Redshirt sophomore quarterback Sam Leavitt took off for a 52-yard touchdown scramble to put the Sun Devils up 24-6. However, NAU answered right back.
Late in the third quarter, Leavitt scrambled for his second rushing touchdown of the night to put ASU up 31-13. The two teams then traded interceptions and touchdowns in the final five minutes of the game.
It wasn’t a dominant win by any means, but ASU managed to pull out an ugly win on Saturday night to start the season 1-0.
Although possibly the bigger story of the night was the home crowd. ASU broke its single-game student attendance record with 14,280 on Saturday night, and announced 56,759 total tickets were sold. Mountain America Stadium’s official capacity is 53,599.
ASU fans showed up and showed out in support of their Sun Devils on the field, and the team delivered with a win. Here are three takeaways from ASU’s ugly win over NAU.
1. ASU’s offensive showed explosiveness
One of the main goals head coach Kenny Dillingham had for his offense in 2025 was to be more explosive, and ASU showed glimpses of that on Saturday night.
ASU had five plays of 20 or more yards, and more than 15 plays of 10 or more yards. The Sun Devils also had a 64-yard play, and a 75-yard play called back due to penalties.
The 75-yard play was a screen pass to redshirt junior running Raleek Brown that he would have taken the distance.
“You can see the explosiveness like (Raleek Brown) had on a few of those plays. Those were plays we really didn’t have a lot of last year, those huge, huge plays,” Dillingham said. “He has that ability. Then when he did get the ball in the run game, I mean, he averaged 7.6 yards per carry.”
Both Raleek and redshirt junior running back Kyson Brown displayed their explosiveness on Saturday night. Kyson Brown had 73 rushing yards on seven carries and 72 receiving yards on six catches, averaging over 10 yards per touch.
However, even with both running back’s flashing their speed, their quarterback had the most explosive play of the night with his 52-yard touchdown scamper.
“That was huge. Explosive play, score a touchdown, really extended the lead there, and we needed some momentum,” Dillingham said. “He’s athletic, so those are the things that you do when you got an athletic dude back there.”
2. Too many penalties
ASU may have won the game, but the Sun Devils did plenty to shoot themselves in the foot. ASU committed 12 penalties that resulted in 93 yards.
“That cost us probably an additional 170 yards, 150 yards of total yardage. So, when you look at it all, if you just removed the penalties, this entire sheet is 200 yards different right now,” Dillingham said as he looked down at the box score. “We’ve got to get that cleaned up. That starts with me. I’m the end all, be all, when it comes to stuff like that.
“We’ve had officials in every practice. We haven’t had that amount of holding calls called at all of camp that we had tonight, and we got to get that cleaned up.”
The 64-yard play and 75-yard play referenced above are the additional yardage Dillingham is referring too. In fact, one of them would have been a touchdown. ASU’s 12 penalties on Saturday night were the most in any game under Dillingham.
However, ASU’s quarterback is confident the Sun Devils will bounce back, play more disciplined and fix the mistakes they made.
“We did some good stuff. Obviously, got to go back and address the holdings and taking care of the ball a little bit,” Leavitt said. “The accountability that we have as a team, I’m not worried about it. We’re going to come back and just go to work and figure out all the little things.”
3. Short yardage situations
ASU’s defense played pretty well overall. However, the Sun Devils struggled in stopping NAU when it got into short yardage situations.
NAU converted every chance it got when it had one yard to go to gain a first down. The Lumberjacks were 4-for-4 on third and fourth downs with one yard to gain, and 1-11 on the rest of their third and fourth downs.
“We got to get better at the short yardage situations,” Dillingham said. “Third and long, we did really good. The other situations were pretty good.”
Although ASU’s defense struggled in those short yardage situations, it shouldn’t take away from the line’s play overall.
The Sun Devils tallied eight tackles for loss and three sacks, and held the Lumberjacks to 89 rushing yards, averaging 3.1 yards per carry. In fact, 55 of NAU’s 89 rushing yards came on their final drive with less than three minutes remaining in a 25-point game.
The defensive line played well throughout the night and never allowed the Lumberjacks to get anything consistent going around the line of scrimmage. However, ASU will need to fix the short yardage situations before it gets into Big 12 play.
Bonus: Jordyn Tyson is really good.
Redshirt junior Jordyn Tyson showed the country what he’s capable of last year when he broke out for 75 receptions, 1,101 yards and 10 touchdowns.
Coming into 2025, Tyson was named a preseason First Team All-American, Big 12 All-Conference player, on the Walter Camp Player of the Year watch list and the Biletnikoff Award watch list.
So, what did he do in his season debut? Just catch 12 passes for 141 yards and two touchdowns.
“He’s been awesome. He drastically has grown up as a person and I couldn’t be more proud of him,” Dillingham said. “I mean, he studies ball at a high rate. He comes up and gets extra. He takes care of his body. He’s a true pro. So, I’m very blessed that I get to coach him, because he’s a special player and special person.”
Tyson made plays all night long, but the play that everyone will remember was ASU’s final touchdown of the night.
Leavitt threw a pass over his outside shoulder toward the corner of the end zone on the sideline, and Tyson reeled it in looking straight up into the sky over his left shoulder and still managed to tap a toe before heading out of bounds.
“I was pretty shocked he caught that,” Leavitt said. “That was a hell of a catch. Probably one of the best catches I’ve seen in a while, live. So, props to him for that.”
As for Tyson, the Sun Devils’ star receiver said he’s been working on that type of catch for quite some time. He’s just never had the opportunity in game to make that type of catch.
It was a memorable night for Tyson, and a historic night for ASU. Although the Sun Devils didn’t play perfect football on the field, ASU managed a win. If you ask Dillingham, that’s the best feeling. The Sun Devils’ head coach can be happy about the win but he knows there’s still plenty to improve on.
ASU will work on those improvements throughout practice this week ahead of its Week 2 matchup with Mississippi State. The Sun Devils will face the Bulldogs next Saturday to try and start 2-0 in 2025.
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