Cutter Boley threw for 95 yards in London. Eleven completions on 23 attempts, 4.1 yards per attempt, one touchdown pass, and a 1-yard scoring run. 247Sports called it his worst statistical showing in any game with more than 15 attempts, and Kenny Dillingham said afterward that "I thought offensively, we played significantly better last week." Arizona State beat Kansas 24-17 anyway, because Owen Long intercepted a pass, forced a fumble and recovered another one while the defense held the Jayhawks to 10 offensive points. That is the team heading into its only bye week. It is 2-1, 1-0 in the Big 12, and winning games the offense is not carrying.
The strange part is that the Kansas game was, in one narrow sense, progress at quarterback. Boley's problem through two starts was not moving the ball, it was keeping it. Against Texas A&M he threw for 254 yards and two touchdowns and then threw two interceptions that Texas A&M returned for fourth-quarter touchdowns; Boley admitted he forced throws, and Dillingham took the blame for one call and called the other a miscommunication. At Kansas, no giveaways at all. Just nothing else either. The Sun Devils managed 228 yards on 66 plays, 3.5 per play. Three starts in, Boley still has not produced an efficient game and a clean one at the same time. Mikey Keene is still on the roster, and the longer that stays true, the more real the conversation gets.
Boley is not the only reason the offense stalled. ASU rushed for 133 yards at 3.1 a carry, Kyson Brown needing 24 carries to get 81, while Kansas generated 15 pressures and two sacks. Dillingham's read was blunt. "Toughness is a core value of what I always want our football teams to look like. I think our offense tried to play with it. But we're just not showing up at the rate we need it right now." The line played that game without starting right guard Wade Helton, and Dillingham said Helton will miss "a few weeks" but not the season; his replacement, Rob Lapuaho, limped off in the third quarter, leaving the spot to a junior with 15 prior FBS snaps. Marcus Arroyo is in his same chair calling it and Brian Ward is still running the defense, with Dillingham in year four and both coordinators back, so there is no new-scheme excuse available. What is broken is execution and availability, and continuity at least means the staff is fixing its own work rather than installing something new in ten days.
The receivers have not covered the gap either. Reed Harris caught four passes for 48 yards with a 25-yard touchdown and Omarion Miller had three for 18, a steep drop from a week earlier, when Harris went for 189 yards and both ASU touchdowns while Miller caught nine balls for 29 yards with nothing longer than seven. That is the trio brought in to replace Jordyn Tyson, and so far it has been Harris or nobody. Miller being used entirely underneath is the specific thing to watch when ASU comes back. If defenses can sit on short routes, Boley's 4.1 yards per attempt has a cause that is not only his.
One loss from London is permanent. Khamari Anderson left on ASU's second offensive play with a left-leg injury, was seen in a boot and on crutches, and has been reported by Arizona Sports' John Gambadoro as out for the season, though ASU has not announced it. He was the best blocking tight end on the roster, and the run game that lost him immediately produced 3.1 a carry. Whoever takes those snaps is now part of the run-game answer, not a depth-chart footnote.
ASU does not get another week like this one. ASU's schedule sent it from Texas A&M to Wembley on back-to-back weekends and gives it nine consecutive playing weekends after this one, with road trips to Texas Tech and BYU inside them. Baylor comes to Tempe on Oct. 3 as roughly a 61 percent home win, and the model's full-season view is modest, about 4.8 conference wins and a 2.8 percent chance of reaching the Big 12 title game. Whatever Boley, the line and the receivers do not fix now, they will be fixing between games, with Texas Tech and BYU already waiting on the road.
More on the week at the interactive guide, and the forecasting details are in the methodology.