Sun Devils beat the Jayhawks in London

Arizona State went from a beating in College Station to a week in London, saw another country, played beneath the Wembley arch and beat Kansas 24–17 before finally pointing itself back toward the desert.

By Andrew Edling | Sports | The Maricopa Meridian

LONDON — The Sun Devils came to England for football and found the whole strange menu.

Jet lag. Fish and chips. Wembley Stadium. Four-man expeditions through London. A coach who apparently decided sleep was optional. Reed Harris drinking imaginary tea after a touchdown. A kickoff return. Three Kansas turnovers. One enormous defensive return that briefly threatened to become the greatest big-man touchdown England had ever seen.

Bangers and mash.

Arizona State 24.

Kansas 17.

Back in Maricopa County, it was still Saturday morning.

That is where this story begins and ends.

Because Arizona State did not simply fly to London for some neutral-site exhibition. This was Tempe’s football team, dragged halfway around the planet during the middle of its season, playing a Big 12 game at one of the most famous stadiums in the world.

And somehow, after all of it, the Sun Devils came home with a win.

A week earlier, Arizona State had been beaten 48–20 by Texas A&M in College Station.

The sensible thing after a game like that is to go home.

Sleep in your own bed.

Get back to the desert.

Regroup.

Arizona State did not go home.

The Sun Devils kept moving east.

Texas to England.

College Station to London.

Another hotel. Another practice field. Another time zone. Another week away from Tempe.

Phoenix to London is roughly 5,200 miles, making the trip one of the longest in Arizona State football history. Only ASU’s trip to Tokyo in 1990 went farther.

This was no ordinary road trip.

For the players, at least, there was some mercy.

Coach Kenny Dillingham let them see London.

They ate fish and chips. They walked around. They took in a city older than the state they represented. A sightseeing trip on the Thames was part of the experience.

There was one important rule.

Nobody disappeared alone.

If you went out, three teammates went with you.

Four Sun Devils at a time in London.

This was apparently the compromise between cultural enrichment and preventing an international incident.

Dillingham chose a different London experience.

He said he barely left the hotel early in the week and did not sleep during his first 36 hours in England.

The players got London.

The coach got Kansas film.

Somewhere in that arrangement is the entire philosophy of college football.

These are athletes, but they are also college students. Many of them may never again have a football program pay to send them across an ocean. They may never again walk into Wembley carrying shoulder pads and helmets.

Dillingham seemed to understand that.

Let them remember the trip.

Just make sure they are ready Saturday.

Then Saturday came.

Wembley has hosted World Cups, European championships, cup finals, NFL games, concerts and enough sporting history to make almost any American stadium feel young.

Now Arizona State was there.

A team from Tempe.

A football program raised in the Sonoran Desert playing beneath the Wembley arch.

The first FBS college football game played in England.

For a few hours, the Big 12 had established a strange little embassy in London.

Then they kicked the ball off and the tourism ended.

Football became football again.

Arizona State scored first on a Carson Smith field goal.

Kansas answered when Tate Nagy returned a punt for a touchdown.

The Sun Devils offense spent much of the first half behaving like a machine assembled from instructions translated through six languages.

Penalties.

Sacks.

Dead drives.

Nothing came easily.

Then, with 25 seconds remaining before halftime, Cutter Boley found Reed Harris for 25 yards.

Touchdown.

Harris understood exactly where he was.

He pretended to drink English tea.

Pinky out.

Then he dropped to his knees and slid across the Wembley grass like a striker celebrating a goal.

It was ridiculous.

It was perfect.

Arizona State led 10–7.

The Sun Devils had officially arrived in England.

Then came halftime.

Kansas kicked off to begin the third quarter.

Jalen Hamilton caught the football.

And suddenly he was gone.

Touchdown.

Arizona State 17.

Kansas 7.

There are football coaches who could spend an hour explaining blocking angles, return lanes, pursuit geometry and special-teams discipline.

There is also a simpler explanation.

Hamilton caught the ball and ran faster than everybody chasing him.

For a few seconds, a Sun Devil was tearing through Wembley Stadium with the ball under his arm while his teammates chased him toward the end zone.

Somewhere back in Arizona, people spilled coffee.

The strange part is that Kansas was actually moving the football better than Arizona State.

Much better.

By the end of the game, Kansas had gained 414 yards.

Arizona State had 228.

The Jayhawks averaged 5.6 yards per play.

The Sun Devils averaged 3.5.

Hand those numbers to somebody who did not watch the game and ask who won.

They would probably say Kansas.

They would be wrong.

Kansas turned the football over three times.

Arizona State turned it over zero times.

That was the game.

Not yardage.

Not aesthetics.

Not style points.

Possession.

Kansas kept moving the football and then finding ways to give it away.

Arizona State kept accepting the gifts.

Early in the fourth quarter came the finest piece of chaos.

Kansas put the ball on the ground.

An Arizona State defender scooped it up and started running.

And running.

And running.

There are few sights in football better than a large defensive player suddenly discovering open field in front of him.

The Sun Devil sideline erupted.

For a moment, it looked as though Wembley might witness that rarest and most beautiful football event: a big man taking a turnover all the way to the house.

Reality eventually caught him.

But it hardly mattered.

Arizona State had the football again.

Soon Boley pushed across the goal line from one yard out.

Touchdown.

24–7.

Now the Sun Devils had control.

Kansas had the yards.

Arizona State had the game.

Or so it seemed.

Kansas kept coming.

Isaiah Marshall found Nagy for a 38-yard touchdown with 6:58 remaining.

24–14.

Then Kansas kicked a 46-yard field goal.

24–17.

There were 3:54 left.

And suddenly all the international pageantry disappeared.

No sightseeing.

No tea.

No London.

No Wembley.

No flight home.

There was only a football field and a clock.

Arizona State had the ball.

Kansas needed it.

That was the whole game now.

Kyson Brown ran.

Boley ran.

The chains moved.

The clock moved.

Kansas waited.

Brown finished with 81 yards on 24 carries.

Boley finished 11-of-23 passing for 95 yards with one touchdown and no interceptions. He also scored on the ground.

These were not glamorous numbers.

They were enough.

At the two-minute warning, Arizona State still had the football.

Kansas never got it back.

Boley knelt.

Again.

Again.

Then zero.

Arizona State 24.

Kansas 17.

The Sun Devils were 2–1.

The box score will remain strange.

Kansas outgained Arizona State by 186 yards.

The Jayhawks threw for more yards. They generated more offense. They made explosive plays.

And they lost.

Football can be brutally simple that way.

Kansas lost two fumbles and threw an interception.

Arizona State gave away nothing.

A week earlier in College Station, the Sun Devils had learned what happens when a game gets away from you.

In London, they refused to give anything away.

Take the ball.

Keep the ball.

Win.

That was enough.

But for Arizona, the story was bigger than the numbers.

Saturday morning began early in the Valley.

Nine o’clock.

Coffee.

Television.

The desert outside.

On the other side of the world, Arizona State was playing football beneath the Wembley arch.

That matters because the Sun Devils are not some distant college team to readers here.

The campus is in Tempe.

Their stadium sits beside the Salt River.

Their players practice in the Valley heat.

Sun Devil shirts, hats, flags and license plates are part of the scenery of Maricopa County.

For one strange week in September, that familiar piece of Arizona disappeared across the Atlantic.

The players ate fish and chips.

They walked through London.

Their coach stayed in a hotel room and worked.

Reed Harris drank imaginary tea.

Jalen Hamilton ran through Wembley.

An Arizona State defender picked up a loose football and briefly appeared destined to run forever.

And then Cutter Boley took three knees while Kansas watched its last chance disappear.

There will be bigger games this season.

There will probably be better football.

There may even be normal football.

But normal was never really available in London.

The Sun Devils got beaten in Texas, crossed an ocean, played the first FBS college football game in England and won at Wembley.

Then, finally, they could point themselves west.

Back across the Atlantic.

Back toward Tempe.

Back to the desert.