The Sun Devils' drive to win overshadows every obstacle

The sold-out crowd was silent.

Despite playing by the letter of the law, Arizona State’s redshirt freshman cornerback Rodney Bimage Jr paid an alarming price. With 4:38 to play in the third quarter, he burst toward West Virginia sophomore running back Cyncir Bowers, ramming him hard, clashing with him in the upper body, leading to a loss of one yard on the rush.

The Sun Devils roared until they tensed. Bimage was lying face down on the turf in pain and barely moving. It was evident immediately that the injury was suffered around his head and neck. For minutes, he was on the ground, moving his limbs but not his head while medical staff prepared to cart him off the field on a stretcher. 

But Bimage didn’t need it, 

As the entire Sun Devil roster huddled around him, Bimage rose to his feet, did a dance, and walked off with the assistance of medical personnel. Although his head coach, Kenny Dillingham, didn’t allow him to return, Bimage walked off with only one thing on his mind. 

“He made a great hit and I was fired up, and then he didn’t get up,” Dillingham said at the moment he noticed Bimage was hurt. “Anytime you make a hit that violent, everybody gets over here as fast as possible. 

“He was smiling, he asked if he stopped him short, and I’m like ‘Yeah, you did, Rodney.’”

Bimage’s determination wasn’t in vain; With less than a minute to play in the contest, his position group member, Keith Abney II, faced an isolated matchup on 4th-and-4. Abney II and freshman quarterback Scotty Fox Jr locked eyes before the snap, and he immediately knew he had the upper hand. 

“It’s crazy because me and the quarterback made eye contact right before,” Abeny laughed. “I knew it was coming for real … I tried to keep a straight face.”

Abney’s interception was enough for ASU (7-3, 5-2 Big 12) to prevail in a 25-23 victory over the Mountaineers (4-7, 2-6) Saturday afternoon. Dillingham has stated throughout the season that people don’t care about circumstances when the final result is at stake, and in a unique way, he praised his team for showing just that. 

“Some people find ways to win, some people find ways to lose,” Dillingham relayed his message to the team after the win.” It’s a great life lesson that nobody cares about the pain. Show me the baby, right?” 

“Other than me, when my wife gets pregnant, I’m going to be very concerned about the pain, but everybody else is going to say ‘show me the baby,’ and unfortunately, that’s life, and right now we’re getting it done.” 

All five of ASU’s Big 12 victories in 2025 have come in one-score games; Saturday’s clash was the third time the margin was just a field goal or fewer. Sophomore wide receiver Derek Eusebio credited the team’s ability to come out on top in close games to their preparation every week in practice. 

“Coach Dilly puts us through a lot of close game scenarios,” Euesbio said. “All fall camp, pretty much working on scenarios every single day. So it’s not like we prepare for it; we want to beat teams pretty badly, but we’re ready for it.” 

A player who’s shown since the beginning of the season he’s ready for the big moment is three-time Big 12 special teams player of the week, senior kicker Jesus Gomez. Time and again, the Sun Devils have called upon him to score and convert timely field goals. Against West Virginia, his 49-yard go-ahead field goal was pure, regaining the lead for them with under three minutes to play. 

“Players make plays at the end of the day,” Eusebio said. “At the end of the day, we gotta make plays.”

In his fourth career start for ASU, senior quarterback Jeff Sims made plays time and again in his best passing performance for the maroon and gold. Sims completed 19-of-28 passes for 207 yards and three touchdowns. He also added 81 rushing yards on 17 carries. 

Sims has hit an impressive stride as the new signal caller for the Sun Devils. His 405 yards of total offense against Iowa State have set him up for success late in the campaign; however, for the first time, Sims got the start in Tempe. 

“It was a blessing,” Sims said. “Anytime you get to come home, don’t have to travel, get to play with your guys. It was just a blessing to be out there. I’m glad that we got to do it.” 

Sims was able to dissect the Mountaineers’ defense in the second quarter when ASU scored all three of its touchdowns, finding six different targets, including Eusebio’s career-high six receptions. 

“We had the same confidence in Jeff to go out there as much as we did with Sam,” Crook said on watching Sims lead the offense. 

Dillingham reiterated that he feels his program has two NFL-caliber quarterbacks, though it’s hard to see that in Sims when he’s a backup to sophomore Sam Leavitt. Junior wide receiver Jordyn Tyson, cheering on from the sidelines, opened up space for Eusebio to flourish as well.

 For the duo of Eusebio and Sims, who combined for a touchdown and 74 yards, the journey over the previous two seasons as backups to starters late in 2025 creates a wholesome full-circle moment. 

“Me and Derek, we came here last year during camp. This year during camp, we was with the twos,” Sims said. “It was just me and him, so coming out here and throwing him the touchdown, it was amazing to see that.” 

The second quarter of action saw ASU put up 22 points after scoring three touchdowns. Unlike the standard procedure, newly appointed special teams coordinator Jack Nudo spent all week drawing up a two-point conversion fake, and when the time was right, after going up 13-3 in the second quarter, the play worked to perfection.

Gomez got the ball, but rather than using his dazzling left boot, he lofted a pass to tight end Cameron Harpole, who awaited in the back of the end zone all alone. 

“He presented it in my office and I was like ‘yeah’, so if we get into the right situation (we’ll run it), we were in the right situation,” Dillingham said. “That two-point conversion kind of made it to where they had to score two touchdowns. It made the trade-off to where they’d always be training; they could never kick a field goal to be back in the game.”

While the offense had a day to hang its hat on, the Sun Devils defense showed out on home turf. West Virginia is a top-half Big 12 rushing offense, averaging over 171 yards per game. On Saturday, they managed just 68 on 1.7 yards per carry. The defensive line was also persistent in picking up three sacks and six tackles for loss that pushed the Mountaineers back 59 yards. 

Defensively, however, the issue came against home run plays. West Virginia scored just one touchdown on four red zone trips, but its other scores came on home run hitters. Just after ASU’s two-point conversion, it allowed a one-play 75-yard touchdown on a routine pass that broke the defense. 

But it was Bowers’ 90-yard screen pass score on 3rd and 27 that saw multiple safeties slip and open up a path for the running back to score. Dillingham describes the play as the second-worst play he’s ever been a part of. 

“We just gave up explosive passes,” Dillingham elaborated. “You take away those two plays of (165) yards and they’re in the 250 yardage range, that’s a really good football game. Unfortunately, all the plays count.” 

The one striking positive that prompted Dillingham to clap in his post-game press conference was the lack of penalties. ASU played its first clean wire-to-wire first quarter of the season and finished the game with just five penalties overall. An issue the program has struggled with throughout the season. 

“I’ve yelled ‘No Penalties’ at half of the practice the last three days,” Dillingham said. “My voice is probably sore from yelling ‘No penalties.’” 

As the Big 12 champions digest the reality of their turbulent 2025 season, the hunt is still on for another shot at the Big 12 Championship game in Dallas on Dec. 6. ASU sits fourth in the conference table but is bouncing around a boatload of teams, and the possibilities are too lengthy to contemplate. 

“It’s so cool to watch these guys through all the adversity this year, 7-3 still in this thing,” Dillingham said. “I don’t know what happened in games earlier today that affected us, but I mean, unbelievable.” 

The final two games of the season will be a cluster to determine the Sun Devils’ season fate, although much of it is out of their control. For a third-year head coach, aiming to earn a second consecutive conference title for the program he grew up watching as a fan, Dillingham’s goals center around ASU. 

He stated when asked that he was “Never leaving,” despite rumors from various national outlets that he’s on the radar of programs across the nation. 

“This is home,” Dillingham said on Arizona State. “You have to continue to push, and my job for our program is to push and push and push until you can’t push anymore.

“If I didn’t do that … I’d be cheating everybody, so my number one goal is always to do whatever I can to push the envelope for Arizona State.”