TEMPE – Jan. 2, 2016 marked the last time the Arizona State Sun Devils (6-3, 4-2 Big 12) and the West Virginia Mountaineers (4-6, 2-5 Big 12) met. The teams faced off in the Motel 6 Cactus Bowl at Chase Field in Phoenix, Arizona, and were led by quarterbacks who started every game that season: Mike Bercovici (ASU) and Skyler Howard (WVU).
Both signal callers combined for over 900 passing yards, and West Virginia pulled away with a 43-42 win, nearly a decade ago.
On Saturday morning, the teams will reunite on ASU’s homecoming weekend. However, this time, both teams will be without their starting quarterback due to season-ending injuries.
West Virginia will be without its junior quarterback, Hamilton High School in Chandler, Arizona, product, Nicco Marchiol.
It’s forced true freshman quarterback Scotty Fox Jr. to step up in his place.
“He throws to open receivers really well. He throws a beautiful deep ball. He’s really efficient in terms of creating explosives,” Arizona State defensive coordinator Brian Ward told reporters on Tuesday’s practice about Fox. “This is an offense that they want to bleed you, they want to get full position, play good defense and get the ball back.”
Fox Jr. became the fourth player to start under center this season for WVU. The young signal caller has the Mountaineers back on track, defeating then No. 22 Houston and Colorado the last two weeks. Like many quarterbacks who have played under West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez, he possesses the ability to make plays with his legs.
“Whether it’s direct runs, inverted reads (or) traditional zone reads, they use their quarterback in every bit of the run game, similar to how we use Jeff [Sims],” Dillingham said.
Over the past two weeks, West Virginia has found success by getting to the quarterback, winning the turnover battle and converting on fourth down. The Mountaineers boast an 87.5% conversion rate on fourth down and have 10 sacks in the last two games, and forced four turnovers at Houston.
Meanwhile, Arizona State senior quarterback Jeff Sims, who replaced usual sophomore starter Sam Leavitt, is coming off a record-breaking rushing performance in his squad’s road win over Iowa State. His play in Ames earned him the honor of having his game-worn jersey displayed in the school’s hall of fame museum.
“It was kind of surreal,” Sims told reporters Tuesday. “I don’t feel like I deserve all that yet. It was cool to see.”
The Sun Devils will look to replicate their ground-game success against the Big 12’s No. 1 rush defense over the past three weeks. Missing junior wide receiver Jordyn Tyson for the third consecutive game, Sims and junior running back Raleek Brown will spearhead Sparky’s rushing attack and offense.
“Jordyn [Tyson], unfortunately, has an opportunity to step back, and guys have to step up,” ASU offensive coordinator Marcus Arroyo told reporters on Wednesday. “That happened a little bit last season at a couple (of) different times. Guys are understanding it’s not a shock factor anymore to anything, especially this season at any position.”
Without four of its six players featured at the Big 12’s preseason media day before the season, Dillingham and his staff haven’t made excuses.
“We’ve been horrible at responding to success this year. We’ve been really good at responding to failure. … We need to show this season that we can play a good football game and come back and play another one and stack them.”
Kickoff is set for 11 a.m. MST at Mountain America Stadium on Saturday.
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