Sam Leavitt completed three touchdown passes, two of them to Jordyn Tyson, in Arizona State’s 35-31 victory over UCF on Saturday in a Big 12 game at Tempe, Ariz.
Arizona State (7-2, 4-2 Big 12) improved to 5-0 at home this season.
The Sun Devils played without leading rusher Cam Skattebo, who suffered a shoulder injury last week at Oklahoma State. Skattebo entering this weekend’s games third in the Big 12 with 1,001 yards on 173 carries. Kyson Brown started in Skattebo’s place and rushed 18 times for a career-high 73 yards.
Leavitt completed 16 of 25 pass attempts for 161 yards, and Tyson finished with seven catches for 99 yards.
RJ Harvey, the Big 12’s leading rusher, finished with 127 yards on 25 carries with three touchdowns for the Knights (4-6, 2-5).
Redshirt freshman Dylan Rizk, UCF’s fourth starting quarterback this season, made his first start on the road and was 24-of-34 for 229 yards with no touchdowns and one interception.
The game had five lead changes, four in the second half. The scoring alternated between Harvey’s two rushing touchdowns and Leavitt connecting with Tyson twice.
Leavitt’s 13-yard completion to Tyson provided the final score with 4:55 left in the game.
UCF was stopped on a loss of downs on its 33 with 3:24 left when Harvey was taken down one yard short of a first down.
Arizona State was able to wind the clock down to just 5 seconds before turning the ball over on downs at the UCF 22. The game ended on an 11-yard pass from Rizk to Jarrad Baker.
Rizk completed all eight of his passes for 54 yards in UCF’s opening drive, capped with an 8-yard touchdown run.
The Sun Devils tied the game at 7 when Montana Warren returned a blocked punt by Martell Hughes 48 yards.
It was Arizona State’s first blocked-punt return for a score since 2017.
UCF increased the lead to 17-7 lead on a 6-yard run by backup quarterback Jacurri Brown on a designed run play.
Arizona State scored two touchdowns within 9 seconds of each other to take a 21-17 lead into halftime. A 4-yard scoring strike from Leavitt to Chamon Metayer was followed by an interception returned 9 yards for a touchdown by Laterrance Welch with 47 seconds left before halftime.
