TEMPE - For one afternoon at Mountain America Stadium, Arizona State got a flashback to a moment that had lived alone for nearly 30 years.
Back on Oct. 12, 1996, at the Rose Bowl, Jake Plummer did something rare enough to stand untouched for decades: he threw a touchdown and caught another in the same game against UCLA. On Saturday, with Plummer in the building, another Sun Devil quarterback matched it.
Jake Fette, making his first home start, helped Arizona State beat Colorado 20-10 and put his name next to that old stat line. The freshman went 13-for-19 with 222 all-purpose yards, tossing one touchdown and hauling in another in the kind of game that mixed improvisation, nerve and a little bit of chaos.
The touchdown catch came in the second quarter on fourth-and-goal from the 1, with ASU up three and stalled after three straight stuffed plays. The Sun Devils reached for something unusual: freshman running back Cardae Mack, who played quarterback in high school, took the snap and had the option to throw.
Fette drifted left, expecting Mack to keep it.
“All week (the coaches) told me, ‘Be ready,’” Fette said. “He might throw it late, and I was like, ‘I don’t know, he’s gonna run it for a touchdown.’”
Mack didn’t like the look of the run and fired to a wide-open Fette instead.
“It actually happened,” Fette said. “I didn’t even know what to do. I’m just happy I caught it.”
Later, ASU tried the same idea again near the end of the third quarter from the Colorado 4-yard line. This time the throw floated enough that Fette had to switch into defender mode and break up an interception attempt.
Even with the oddball touchdown and the win, Fette wasn’t exactly celebrating the offense’s day as a whole.
“The first home win is a real special one,” Fette said. “But at the end of the day, I don’t think as an offensive unit we play well enough. But it makes it a little sweeter when you come out with the win.”
Arizona State came in off a close loss to No. 9 BYU and responded by getting back in the win column, continuing a strange season-long pattern of alternating wins and losses each week. The Sun Devils are now 5-4 overall and 3-3 in the Big 12.
For Fette, the bigger takeaway has been how quickly he’s had to grow into the role. Thrust into the lineup over halfway through his freshman season, he said the job has pushed him into a different kind of leadership.
“Turning into a leader myself,” Fette said of his presence as a teammate. “As a starting quarterback, you can’t just stand back there and be all quiet. You have to lead the offensive unit, and I’ve been trying to build on that in the couple games I’ve been playing.”
Coach Kenny Dillingham pointed to the details that usually trip up young quarterbacks and said Fette handled them like a veteran.
“He did a good job controlling the game once again,” Dillingham said. “Things like no penalties, no procedural issues, no 40-second clock, no misshifts or motioning the wrong guy. All very veteran-like operations for a young buck.”
Linebacker Owen Long took it a step further when asked about Fette after the game.
“I think he could get some run,” Long quipped of the QB sitting next to him in the postgame news conference. “This dude’s a baller.
The way he’s handled his business the last few weeks, but not just that. Since he got here in January, it’s been fun to watch.
He’s been preparing for this moment forever. This is not surprising to any of us.”
Arizona State still has plenty in front of it. The Sun Devils need one more win to become bowl eligible, and the final three games won’t offer any easy path.
They head to Orlando to face Central Florida, which already upset then-No. 2 BYU.
After that comes a home game against Oklahoma State, a team that scored 66 at Kansas State and beat Oregon earlier this season. The regular season ends with a trip south to face rival No.
22 Arizona.
Dillingham said the offense can still be more aggressive, especially after building a 17-point lead.
“We were running the ball and being efficient so early that we got a 17-point lead and my human nature kicks in,” he said. “We have to be a little bit more aggressive on earlier downs and give him the opportunities to throw and catch because when we give him those opportunities, he does a great job.”
The presence of the 1996 ASU team on Saturday added another layer to the day. That group went 11-0 and nearly beat Ohio State in the Rose Bowl, and Dillingham said the program’s bigger goal is to create more moments like that.
“The goal is: How do we have a team get remembered, not every 30 years?” Dillingham said.
“How do we get a team remembered here every three years, every four years, every five years? How do we create that to where those unbelievable teams and unbelievable moments become a little bit more consistent?”
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