Junior Dexter Davis only recorded two tackles for the ASU football team against Washington State Saturday, but he sure made them count.
The defensive end notched two sacks deep in Cougar territory and helped pace a dominating Sun Devil defense in its 31-0 victory.
“That’s the best pass coverage there is: you’re getting pressure [on the quarterback] with those front four and don’t have to blitz,” junior linebacker Mike Nixon said. “Anytime you get that, especially on big second downs [and] big third downs, [it gets] us off the field, … [and] it gets the offense better field position.”
They were Davis’ eighth and ninth sacks of the season and it was his eighth career multi-sack game.
Four of those eight occasions have come this season against NAU, Stanford, Washington and now WSU.
Davis’ first sack came late in the first quarter when WSU’s junior quarterback Kevin Lopina tried to roll out of the pocket on third down. Instead, Lopina was drilled by Davis for a loss of six yards and the Cougars (1-10, 0-8 Pac-10) were forced to punt from their own end zone.
Davis dragged Lopina down again in the final two minutes of the first half, this time for a loss of 10 yards to force a third-and-32 play from the WSU 5-yard line.
Davis is second in the Pac-10 Conference in sacks, one behind Oregon senior defensive end Nick Reed, who has 10.
Davis is a half of a sack away from tying Scott Stephen for the fourth-most in a Sun Devil career (26).
Nance and new line boost offense
After not getting any sort of momentum running the football for the first seven games, the Sun Devils (4-6, 3-4 Pac-10) have now had three different running backs step up in the last three weeks.
Junior Shaun DeWitty gained 110 yards against Oregon State two weeks ago and senior Keegan Herring rushed for 144 against UW last week.
This time it was junior Dimitri Nance, who had nine carries for 47 yards in the second half and provided a much-needed boost on offense.
“Nance gave us a spark,” ASU coach Dennis Erickson said. “We weren’t breaking tackles like I thought we should in the first half, so we decided to put him in there, and he came in and made some awfully good runs for us.”
Nance only had one carry against OSU two weeks ago and did not touch the ball against UW last week.
Nance got his first carry of the game on ASU’s first drive of the third quarter and broke it up the middle for 16 yards. He then got the ball again on the next two plays and rushed for eight and 11 yards, respectively.
The drive ended with senior quarterback Rudy Carpenter’s 21-yard touchdown pass to junior wide receiver Kyle Williams.
Nance touched the ball on four straight plays on ASU’s other touchdown drive in the second half, establishing the running game needed for the 51-yard play-action bomb from Carpenter to Williams to work effectively.
“He’s a hard worker, he’s very dependable [and] he’s reliable,” Carpenter said of Nance. “I was happy he got a chance to get in there and play well and be the spark that we needed in the second half.”
ASU had four runners carry the ball for at least 30 yards against the Cougars and gained a total of 141 yards on the ground.
One of the reasons behind the successful running game has been the play of the offensive line, which has performed much better since undergoing numerous changes in recent weeks.
“It’s a testament to those guys because obviously, in some areas, they’re inexperienced and young and we’ve got new guys coming in all the time,” Carpenter said. “It’s difficult, and those guys have hung in there all year.”
The line also gave up just five total sacks against both UW and WSU, compared to five sacks against OSU two weeks ago.
WSU got two sacks on back-to-back plays on ASU’s first drive of the game and one in the second quarter, but none after that.
Redshirt freshman Garth Gerhart got the first start of his career at left guard, replacing injured freshman Zach Schlink.
Junior Shawn Lauvao also started his second straight game at right tackle since moving over from left guard, but he left early in the game with an injury and was replaced by junior Tom Njunge.
Lauvao was wearing a boot on his left foot when walking off the field after the game.
Reach the reporter at gina.mizell@asu.edu.
