Arizona QB Brandon Dawkins accuses ASU of ‘cheating’ after Territorial Cup win
Nov 26, 2016, 8:40 AM | Updated: 3:45 pm
Brandon Dawkins on reasoning behind huddling tonight: “ASU be cheating.” pic.twitter.com/BcVgKPnq8y
— Daily Wildcat Sports (@WildcatSports) November 26, 2016
Arizona quarterback Brandon Dawkins was the man of the hour Friday night in Arizona’s 56-35 win over Arizona State in the 2016 edition of the Territorial Cup.
Dawkins was named the MVP of the game, rushing for 184 yards and two touchdowns, and also had a moment in the game go viral when he had a collision with Miss Arizona on the sideline.
After the game, though, Dawkins wasn’t quite done making headlines.
The sophomore was asked about Arizona’s reasons behind huddling, a severe change in Rich Rodriguez’s offense.
Dawkins didn’t shy around the answer.
“ASU be cheating,” Dawkins said. “They know our signals. Sometimes they’ll call out some of our calls. I’ll go up to the line, get a signal from the sideline and walk up to the line and the defense will be calling out our play. ‘Run right’ or ‘pass left,’ doing this, doing that. We had to switch it up a little bit. We had wristbands just in case. ASU’s always got tricks up their sleeves, but we had tricks up our sleeves for them too. That was just another way to get prepared for them, knowing what they do going into this game.”
Washington State head coach Mike Leach said last month that the Sun Devils, “have a whole command center that’s designed around this stuff.” He was fined $10,000 for those comments and ASU head coach Todd Graham had strong words for Leach in their postgame handshake.
The Arizona Daily Star’s Zack Rosenblatt says Rodriguez has known of ASU’s reputation of stealing signals for some time but has never made comments similar to Dawkins’.
