EL PASO — In a scene imagined by few if any before it actually happened and almost assuredly never preceded by anything quite like it, Arizona State players poured a cooler of Kellogg's Frosted Flakes on the head of their coach in celebration on Tuesday.
It was not the traditional Gatorade bath that invariably comes with the biggest of wins. There will be no lighting of victory cigars. There may be some champagne toasts in the aftermath but those will primarily be to ring in the New Year and only more obliquely related to the outcome of their football game played several hours earlier.
But, still, the Sun Devils ended their 2019 season the right way and so they bathed their second-year head coach Herm Edwards in breakfast cereal and he certainly didn't mind it.
"First time I've ever got a bucket full of Frosted Flakes, that's new," Edwards said. "That helps. That's not cold. All I needed was some milk and I would have been fine."
In the play-calling debut of its new defensive coordinator Tony White, ASU forced six turnovers — more than in any game since October of 2009 against Washington State — and perhaps needed every one in its 20-14 win over Florida State in the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl in front of 42,412 fans in the 86th playing of the game. The win concluded ASU's season at 8-5 overall, better than their initial 7-6 season under Edwards. Florida State finished its season at 6-7 overall.
Though they have aspirations for more extravagant celebrations in the future, the Sun Devils are content with where they are currently at two years into the Edwards-experiment, which was initially widely panned but now has taken on an unmistakable aura of emerging success.
"It shows the potential for our defense and how strong we're going to become," freshman safety Willie Harts said after collecting one of four ASU interceptions on the afternoon. "We're very young and still experienced and we're going to learn so much over the years."
With both teams missing key players due to early-NFL declarations and undertaking significant staffing changes including a new coordinator on both sides of the ball for the Sun Devils, there was a lot of sloppy, forgettable play on Tuesday. But also, some very memorable moments.
The Sun Devils held a halftime 9-0 lead and appeared to have the Seminoles offense in a vice grip before a five-minute stretch late in the third quarter that flipped the game upside down.
With multiple deep reserves on the field for ASU's defense due to the absence of starting redshirt freshman safety Cameron Phillips and injuries to junior cornerbacks Chase Lucas and Jack Jones, Florida State marched 91 yards in 11 plays including a fourth-and-3 conversion to score its first points at 3:47 of the third quarter and make it a suddenly close 9-7 ASU edge.
After redshirt sophomore punter Michael Turk — excellent in the game with eight punts for a 45.8 yard average with four inside the 20 — ended ASU's third straight series of the quarter with a punt on its next possession, the Seminoles immediately struck again to take a 14-9 lead. With Lucas and Jones watching from the sidelines, sophomore cornerback Timarcus Davis gave up a 91-yard touchdown strike to sophomore wide receiver Tamorrion Terry, a one-play scoring drive.
It didn't dent ASU's confidence whatsoever. On their next possession, the Sun Devils marched 59 yards on 12 plays in a drive that included a highlight-reel 27-yard scramble by freshman quarterback Jayden Daniels on third-and-10 and ended with sophomore kicker Cristian Zendejas making his fourth field goal of the day to tie a Sun Bowl record and cut his team's deficit to 14-12. But it was the Sun Devils' fourth red zone trip and they only had 12 points to show for it and still trailed.
That's when Harts sprung into action on a miscommunication between Florida State sophomore quarterback James Blackman and a receiver that placed a ball directly in the arms of the safety who started in place of Phillips. With a clear path to the end zone, Harts pushed ASU's lead to 20-14 after a successful 2-point try. The interception was Blackman's third of four on the day, with the Sun Devils needing two more turnovers later in the fourth quarter to salt the game away.
On Florida State's next drive, sophomore ASU linebacker Darien Butler made a tackle-for-loss on a fourth-and-2 get his team the ball back. Blackman then threw his fourth interception of the day to ASU senior linebacker Khaylan Kearse-Thomas on Florida State's next drive. And even with all of that, the Seminoles had one more chance in the game's final two minutes when Terry lost a fumble to ASU forced by sophomore linebacker Merlin Robertson and recovered by sophomore linebacker Tyler Johnson.
"Can't say enough about our kicker and our defense," Edwards said. "We get six turnovers we should probably win a game. That being said, these guys kept fighting back for us. They really did. I'm happy for our seniors. To end the season with a bowl victory for them is very important. We hit a slump during the season where we had lost four in a row. I reminded the players, when you get tired of losing, you're going to win again. We've won three in a row now. This is a good way to set the 2020 season off for us, with a bowl game (win). That's very important to us."
Kearse-Thomas, who early in the game was given a reprieve when a hit on Blackman was called targeting on the field but overturned on review, and Williams excelled in their final ASU outing. Kearse-Thomas had a team-high six solo tackles and nine total in addition to his interception and a quarterback hurry. Williams concluded his season without giving up a touchdown pass in coverage and was excellent throughout a game in which ASU's pass defense yielded just 155 yards excluding the 91-yard touchdown.
"I can't say enough about Khaylan and Kobe," Edwards said. "These guys are seniors. I take my hat off to them. When you get a coaching change and you put in your defense, that's hard. It's hard on seniors. It really is. They're looking at a new staff, saying, 'you're playing all these young guys, what about me?' Without these two guys we're not the defense we were this year.
"I'm glad for these guys because of what they've meant to me personally. I lean on them. They were always there, always energetic. They were the keys to the defense to be quite honest."
The Sun Devils won despite being out-gained in total offensive yards 470 to 282 because their defense held up well other than the flagging late third-quarter stretch and Blackman committing five turnovers on his own out of the six total by the Seminoles. Robertson had perhaps his best game of the season and forced both of Florida State's lost fumbles and recovered one of them on his own. Sophomore safety Aashari Crosswell and junior safety Evan Fields each had a first-half interception to contribute to the shutout pitched by ASU before intermission, the latter doing so after promising his mom he would get one for her on her birthday.
While Daniels — sacked three times on the day and under duress throughout — received the game's MVP honors for the Sun Devils despite a low-percentage 12 of 28 passing performance for just 195 yards in part because he led the team in rushing with 36 yards on 12 carries, it was the team's defensive playmaking that took center stage in the absence of senior receiver Brandon Aiyuk and junior running back Eno Benjamin.
Moreover, it was White's successful first attempt at calling plays after being promoted from cornerbacks coach to defensive coordinator, which resonated with Edwards and ASU players in the game's aftermath, particularly as it came in White's hometown in front of a large group of family and friends.
"One hundred tickets," Edwards said. "'One hundred tickets Tony White.' He has a fan base now. He grew up here. It was fun, we visited his brother's high school, worked out over there when we got here Thursday. He was excited. I'm happy for him. Gets to take over as the coordinator. I thought he did a great job. Had a shutout going in the first half."
Added Kearse-Thomas: "He got us prepared really well. I mean, we had all month to really prepare. We were very detailed in what we were doing and then he got the play call in for us and told us to go. [Linebackers coach Antonio Pierce] told us before the game, 'This could be a stat game if you want it to be.'"
Stats make players happy and especially so when it includes winning football games and having fun doing it. Under the team's previous coaching staff, that was not the case for some Sun Devils who now believe they are passing a torch to the next generation with a lot of fuel for what they see as an even brighter future.
"It's changed tremendously (under Edwards)," Kearse-Thomas said. "It's like (the movie) Coming to America. "Coming from a dictatorship ... just the freedom. Coach Herm, he allows us to be us. A couple years back we couldn't do that. It played a role in the success with ASU. I feel like him letting the kids be kids is a big step for the program."
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