LONDON - Arizona State didn’t need a perfect night at Wembley Stadium. It needed takeaways, and it got three of them.
That was the separator in the Sun Devils’ 24-17 win over Kansas in the first-ever Union Jack Classic, a result that lifted ASU to 2-1 overall and 1-0 in the Big 12 while dropping the Jayhawks to 1-2 and 0-1 in league play. Coach Kenny Dillingham said the turnovers were “potentially the difference in the game,” and the numbers backed him up.
The biggest swing came early in the fourth quarter. Senior linebacker Owen Long jarred the ball loose on a screen pass to junior running back Dylan Edwards, and sophomore defensive lineman Hyrum Vaeono scooped it up with open field ahead of him.
The 6-foot-2, 305-pound lineman carried it 77 yards before getting tripped up two yards short of the end zone. Junior quarterback Cutter Boley finished the job from there, punching in a two-yard score to push ASU ahead 24-7.
Vaeono, who is from Lawrence, Kansas, said the moment felt unreal.
"When he got hit, everything had slowed down when I first seen the ball," Vaeono said. "It was like I was in a literal dream.
I couldn't hear nothing. I was just running as hard as I could."
For Vaeono, the play carried extra meaning. He wasn’t recruited by Kansas out of high school, and no FBS program offered him a scholarship.
Instead, he stayed in his home state at Butler Community College, about two hours from Lawrence. As a freshman there, he had 18 tackles, 4.5 for loss, and 2.5 sacks in seven games.
When he entered the transfer portal as a three-star junior college prospect, Kansas still didn’t come calling. Arizona State did.
Three games into his first season with the Sun Devils, Vaeono ended up making a huge play against the team he grew up watching. Even with ASU listed as the away team, the setting was Wembley Stadium in London, not Lawrence. The location didn’t change how personal it felt.
"I feel like I came into the game with a chip on my shoulder," Vaeono said. "I wanted to make a big play, and it happened."
Long had his fingerprints all over ASU’s takeaway spree. He intercepted sophomore quarterback Isaiah Marshall on Kansas’ next possession, then later recovered a fumble forced by junior safety Boogie Wilson in the second quarter. Long, who led the nation with 151 tackles last season, finished with a team-high 12 tackles Saturday and now has 25 through three games with ASU.
He’s also the only linebacker on the Pat Tillman Leadership Council, and linebacker coach AJ Cooper has nicknamed the group the werewolves. Five weeks ago at Camp Tontozona, Warren Zevon’s "Werewolves in London" was playing during practice, which now feels fitting.
"Some people have the instincts to make plays," head coach Kenny Dillingham said. "He's one of those guys that have the instinct to make plays, and he prepares at such a high level that he's a step ahead of everybody. And I think that's shown up."
The third turnover came with another underrecruited Sun Devil. Junior linebacker Prayer Young-Blackgoat, who walked on at ASU in 2024 before earning a scholarship, was the first player to get to Edwards on the screen before Long stripped the ball free. Young-Blackgoat has mostly played special teams the past two years, but his limited linebacker snaps mattered in a big way here.
ASU’s defensive work was a sharp contrast from last week’s loss to No. 9 Texas A&M, when the Sun Devils gave the ball away four times and only intercepted senior quarterback Marcel Reed once. Since 2024, ASU is 15-0 when it wins the turnover battle and 4-6 when it loses it.
"Those were potentially the difference in the game," Dillingham said. "You can look at all the stats in the last two games we played, and there's only one stat that matters; it's the takeaways.
This week, we won 3-0, and last week, we lost. It's funny how simple football really is and how people overcomplicate the game."
The box score wasn’t pretty for ASU on offense. Kansas outgained the Sun Devils 414 yards to 228, but the Jayhawks couldn’t turn that edge into enough points. Through the first 52 minutes, turnovers and fourth-down stops kept Kansas stuck at seven points as Boley struggled to connect with his playmakers.
A bye week now gives ASU time to get healthier on offense, though Dillingham made clear what he liked most from this one.
"Our motto is smart, tough, the ball," Dillingham said. "Our toughness is a core value of what I always want our football teams to look like, and I think our defense played with that.
I think our offense tried to play with it, but we're just not showing up at the rate we need to right now. From a defensive perspective, I absolutely love the physicality we're playing with."
In Other News...
ASU Big Man Delivered The Play Kansas Fans Wont Forget
Arizona States trip to Wembley Stadium produced a defensive moment that will stick with Kansas fans for a while. Early in the 24-17 win over the Jayhawks, defensive lineman Hyrum Vaeono pounced on a forced fumble and rumbled 75 yards to the Kansas 2-yard line, setting up the kind of short-field swing that can change an overseas game in a hurry. The Sun Devils defense kept building on it, forcing three turnovers and making life miserable on Kansas in crucial fourth-down spots.
Vaeonos impact carried a little extra edge because he is a Kansas native and a Lawrence Free State High School graduate, making it his first game against KU. Arizona State also got a huge boost from special teams when Jared Hamilton took a kickoff 100 yards for a touchdown, giving the Sun Devils the kind of all-phase performance that can make a statement even far from home. [Read more 🡒]
Arizona State Just Opened Big 12 Play With A Grit Fans Will Love
Arizona State opened Big 12 play in a way Sun Devils fans will appreciate, leaning on defense and special teams to outlast Kansas 24-17 in the inaugural Union Jack Classic in London. Even while being outgained in total offense, the Sun Devils kept finding answers, forcing three turnovers and making enough high-leverage plays to stay in control of a game that never really felt comfortable.
Linebackers Owen Long and Martell Hughes were central to that effort, helping set the tone for a unit that refused to break when the Jayhawks pressed. Jaren Hamilton gave the performance an extra jolt with a 100-yard kickoff return touchdown, the kind of explosive play that can swing a game and, in this case, helped Arizona State leave London with a statement win to start conference play. [Read more 🡒]
Kenny Dillingham Didn't Care How Ugly Arizona State's Win Looked
Arizona States trip to Wembley Stadium ended with a win, and Kenny Dillingham made it clear he was far more concerned with the result than the style points. In the Union Jack Classic, the Sun Devils beat Kansas 24-17 in the first college football game in England between two FBS teams, grinding through a performance that featured turnovers and penalties before finding enough answers to finish the job.
For a team that just spent a long week on the road, the bigger takeaway was survival. Dillingham pointed to the value of winning in a tough setting and the fact that Arizona State was able to avoid giving the game away when things got messy, even if the final product hardly looked polished. The Sun Devils now head home with the kind of cross-Atlantic victory that wont make many highlight reels, but still counts the same in the standings. [Read more 🡒]