After jumping out to a commanding 17–0 lead on the road, TCU appeared poised to control the night. But as the game wore on, mistakes piled up and Arizona State took advantage, rallying for a 27–24 victory. Horned Frogs head coach Sonny Dykes admitted afterward that his team lost its grip on the game and never recovered offensively.
“We kind of kept shooting ourselves in the foot a little bit,” Dykes said. “Had some penalties and things in the first half that got us behind the chains. Our inability to run the football hurt us the whole night. Just couldn’t get anything going in the run game and had to abandon it. And when you do that, people can really come after you. That put our quarterback in a hard spot.”
TCU turned the ball over three times, a number Dykes pointed to as the deciding factor. “We turned the ball over three times. Obviously, that’s the difference in the game,” he said. “You can’t turn it over in the red zone like that. You can’t turn it over in a critical situation at the end of the game like we did. Just can’t afford to do that.”
THE PLAY OF THE NIGHT BY @martellhughes 😈 pic.twitter.com/M8DFTix5Bd
— Sun Devil Football (@ASUFootball) September 27, 2025
The Sun Devils’ defensive scheme forced TCU out of rhythm, loading the box to take away the run and daring the Frogs to sustain long drives. “They’re a team that’s built to stop the run. There’s always an extra guy in the box,” Dykes explained. “That’s why we had some success throwing it. But we just didn’t execute particularly well offensively the whole night. Gotta give Arizona State some credit. They did a good job mixing things up.”
Despite the loss, Dykes praised his defense for keeping the game within reach. “I thought our defense really played hard. We played with our back against the wall, had some big fourth down stops,” he said. “We gave ourselves a chance to win with the way we played defense, but the turnovers killed us.”
Ultimately, third downs proved to be the undoing. The Horned Frogs consistently found themselves in long-yardage situations, leaving little margin for error. “Just bad offensive play,” quarterback Josh Hoover said. “It’s unbelievable that we scored 17 points considering how many third and longs we’ve been in. The fact that we overcame four third-and-15s is unbelievable. I mean it seems like we were just behind the sticks all day and we just got to find ways to be better. I’ve got to do better on first down, get some better plays, and get the ball to the guys who need to get the ball.”
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