I know Thanksgiving passed a couple of days ago at this point, but I, for one, find myself grateful for the Arizona Wildcats right now. Because last night, the Arizona Wildcats did a huge favor for Joey McGuire and the Texas Tech Red Raiders. While it wasn’t technically totally necessary, it certainly helped Texas Tech in a pretty huge way.
And what was that huge favor?
Well, the Arizona Wildcats managed to beat up on the Arizona State Sun Devils, absolutely smothering the Sun Devils’ otherwise generally impressive offense in the process.
And while that result in and of itself is a little cathartic to watch given that Texas Tech lost to Arizona State when they met a little while back, it’s the fact that this particular result guarantees that the Red Raiders will go to the Big 12 championship game that makes it such a good thing.
That’s right. The Wildcats’ 23-7 win over Kenny Dillingham and the Sun Devils was enough to set the Texas Tech Red Raiders and the BYU Cougars up to get to Arilington to compete in the Big 12 championship game.
And that’s worth celebrating.
Texas Tech Red Raiders headed to the Big 12 championship game after Arizona beats Arizona State Sun Devils
This game was such a mess from Arizona State. While they’ve been able to get wins while playing sloppy against other opponents, that wasn’t the case in the Territorial Cup.
For a moment, we can go ahead and ignore the fact that Arizona managed to outgain Arizona State by a margin of 374 yards to 214 yards. We can look past the fact that Arizona State was just 3-of-11 on third down attempts while Arizona managed to go 10-of-20 on third downs. We can also just overlook how the Wildcats had the ball for over 40 minutes of game time.
All of those stats raise a ton of concern for Arizona State. It’s clear that they weren’t going to win this one when you take a look at just those numbers. But that said, the most alarming stat in this one, if I’m an Arizona State fan that is, is the fact that the Sun Devils had FIVE turnovers. This game was incredibly sloppy from the Sun Devils.
And I’m sure Texas Tech fans are grateful for each and every one of those five turnovers from Arizona State.