Arizona State Football: Watching Manny Wilkins is a Rollercoaster Ride

Manny Wilkins, senior quarterback of the Arizona State football program, had a confusing performance against Stanford.

On Thursday evening, the Arizona State football program lost another heartbreaking game. This time it was the Stanford Cardinal delivering the blow with a 20-13 victory. Like most losses this season, the team played really well at times but failed to impress at other points. The truth is that it’s been the story of ASU’s season so far.

And nobody exemplifies Arizona State’s up-and-down season more than senior quarterback Manny Wilkins. On one hand, Wilkins gives a great effort every game and actually cares. It’s an endearing quality, and somehow, he always seems to get the team in position for a game-winning or game-tying drive at the end of games. With that said, Wilkins has been inaccurate at times this season and he’s also had questionable moments in the decision-making department. Against Stanford, all of his positives and negatives were on full display.

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In total, Wilkins went 26-for-43 with zero touchdowns and one interception against Stanford. Not great, but not that bad, either. But he also had a gritty touchdown run late in the fourth quarter where he brought a defender into the end zone with him.

This is Manny Wilkins year; he’s going to start and finish every game as long as he’s healthy, and that’s the way it should be. Yet, there are so many times where his decisions are flat-out frustrating to watch.

Take their last drive against Stanford as an example: Wilkins is engineering a beautiful two-minute drill that wound up at Stanford’s 20-yard line with eight seconds remaining and zero timeouts. Instead of getting a shot at the end zone, though, Wilkins throws underneath to Eno Benjamin with a guy right on his back. Eno gets tackled, the clock runs out, and the Sun Devils drop to 3-4 on the season.

The chance that they scored from 20-yards out was slim but it would have been a little more comforting to have had a chance. I really like Manny Wilkins, and he’s the guy from here on out, but I wish he wasn’t such a rollercoaster ride every game. The inaccuracy and questionable choices will continue holding him back against quality competition.