Gimmickry Was Order of the Day

Arizona State and UCLA ran a gimmick-play derby.

Arizona State used a throwback pass to quarterback Jake Plummer for the winning score, covering 16 yards. The Sun Devils also used a wide-receiver pass by Ricky Boyer, which was intercepted by Abdul McCullough.

UCLA used a halfback pass, Durell Price overthrowing Jim McElroy; an onside kick, which the Bruins recovered but couldn’t use to generate a touchdown; a “pooched” kickoff in which Greg Andrasick popped the ball up, but UCLA was unable to recover it; and a “pooched” punt in which Bjorn Merten took a direct snap while in field-goal formation and punched the ball with his foot, 32 yards to the Arizona State three-yard line.

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Plummer’s feats don’t surprise his teammates anymore--but they do provide some amusement.

Defensive end Brent Burnstein particularly enjoyed watching Plummer lateral to J.R. Redmond then catch a pass from Redmond and plunge into the end zone for the touchdown that put the Sun Devils ahead, 35-34, with 7:17 left in the fourth quarter.

“There was a little bit of everything,” Burnstein said. “Maybe Jake will win the Heisman for playing running back.”

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Cade McNown’s 395 passing yards were the best of his career and third-best in UCLA history, behind Tommy Maddox (409 yards vs. USC in 1990) and Steve Bono (399 yards vs. Brigham Young in 1983).

McNown’s 22 completions and 41 attempts were also personal bests.

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Arizona State’s Terry Battle returned a kickoff 99 yards to tie the score, 7-7. It tied the second-longest return in Sun Devil history, behind Wilford White’s 100-yard return against Pepperdine in 1948.

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Keith Poole caught seven passes for 112 yards, and his 15-yard touchdown catch in the second quarter extended his streak of scoring receptions to five games in a row.

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The attendance, 66,107, was swelled by tickets given to more than 25,000 children in the L.A. Unified School District as part of UCLA’s Let’s Go to College program.

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McNown’s 22 completions went to 10 different receivers, with Danny Farmer getting the most catches, four, and McElroy the most yards, 105 on two catches. . . . Merten has missed field-goal attempts in three games in a row. . . . Skip Hicks finished with 114 yards in 22 carries, the second week in a row he has gained more than 100 yards.