ASU goes ultra-aggressive early in season opener, pays off onside kick with score

TEMPE — Arizona State didn’t hold back early in its 70-7 season-opening win against Morgan State, calling an onside kick 93 seconds into the game after it scored the first touchdown.

Kicker Carson Smith eased up as he approached the ball, but Morgan State’s return team failed to react. Wide receiver Cory Butler Jr. was there for the recovery.

asu pays off an ultra-aggressive onside kick 93 seconds into the game after it scored a touchdown with omarion miller’s first touchdown as a sun devil.

carson smith slowed up on his approach to the ball, but morgan state did not react and cory butler jr. recovered. pic.twitter.com/RBRauo7A5i

— Damon Allred (@iamdamonallred) September 6, 2026

Head coach Kenny Dillingham has been known for being aggressive, but an onside kick so early in a game that ASU came in favored by 43.5 points felt like a new level.

Dillingham said postgame that the coaches saw something on tape that indicated the opportunity would be there, and once they saw it play out in front of them, it was time to pull the trigger.

“I believe that if things are there, you do it,” Dillingham said. “You can’t worry about if it doesn’t work. At the end of the day, I think Bruce Arians used to say ‘no risk it, no biscuit.’ You got to play the game to win, so if you see something on tape and it’s there, and it shows up there again, let’s do it.

“I think players feed off of aggressiveness as well. So if something’s there to be aggressive, we want to be able to try to take it and not play scared.”

The ultra-aggressive play came after ASU scored a touchdown on just two plays, including a 46-yard touchdown run by Kyson Brown.

Omarion Miller set up the home run play with a short gain for his first catch in a Sun Devil uniform, and he capped off the drive that came after the onside kick with an extra effort on a catch-and-run for his first ASU touchdown.

The ASU defense had a blazing start to the game as well, forcing a three-and-out with -1 yards by Morgan State’s offense on the game’s first drive.

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