One team scores 55 points, and gathers 667 total offensive yards.
Its starting tailback — a walk-on that earns a living cleaning pools — rushes for a career-high 158 yards on 33 carries.
Its starting quarterback — a redshirt freshman that has battled through mononucleosis to take over the starting role — lights it up for 432 yards and five touchdowns, while completing 21 of his 34 passes.
And, in the end, that team loses.
Such was the case for head coach Bruce Snyder’s Arizona State Sun Devils Saturday, in their heartbreaking 56-55 double-overtime loss to the Oregon Ducks at Sun Devil Stadium.
“[I feel] just drained,” Snyder said. “It was a very hard-fought game. I told my team that I’m proud of them in terms of their effort.”
It wasn’t the Sun Devil players who had to deal with the second-guessing afterwards, it was Snyder himself.
Arizona State trailed 56-49 in the second overtime, but still had a shot to tie the game up. On a third-and-six from the 21-yard line, quarterback Jeff Krohn found Richard Williams in the end zone for the touchdown pass.
The Sun Devils’ kicking team trotted out for the extra point, while it appeared a third overtime was soon to begin. But then the ball was snapped to Krohn, who instead of holding it for place-kicker Mike Barth, got up and threw towards tight end Todd Heap in the end zone for the potential game-winning two-point conversion.
Heap couldn’t corral it, and the ballgame abruptly ended in Oregon’s favor.
Snyder expected to be second-guessed on the gutsy call.
“The whole decision is on me, obviously,” Snyder said. “I just said, ‘Let’s try to win it right here.’ We’ve been practicing that play, we do it every week. It’s something that’s well-drilled. We just didn’t get it completed.”
Snyder also mentioned how Barth’s lower back was hurting, which had impacted an earlier field goal miss. Barth’s health also affected a play call made late in the fourth quarter, when the Sun Devils were faced with a fourth-and-14 from the Oregon 33-yard line with 2:22 to play in the game.
Instead of kicking it and extending its 49-42 lead, Arizona State went for it, didn’t get the first down and turned the ball back to Oregon. It was a move that would eventually lead to Oregon’s game-tying score.
“That was one of the most difficult decisions in the game, no question,” Snyder said.
All week, Duck head coach Mike Bellotti warned his team that the Sun Devils would be no push-over.
“Arizona State, coming in at 5-2 after what they’ve gone through is a tremendous testament to their coaches and their players,” said Bellotti, referring to the Sun Devil injury problems. “We knew we were in for a battle.”
A courageous battle put on by both teams that left one side amazed at its own victory, and another facing the dreaded two worded question, “What if?”