Editor's Note: The following letter was written from former Daily Trojan editor-in-chief and USC alumnus Euno Lee to then-State Press sports editor Stefan Modrich in the fall of 2015. We asked Lee to reflect on the end of the 2014 ASU-USC game from a USC perspective. The game-winning touchdown pass from then-quarterback Mike Bercovici to Jaelen Strong – the "Jael-Mary" – as time expired that allowed the Sun Devils to upset the then-No. 16 Trojans at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Below is is the letter in its entirety, which has been edited for clarity.
Oct. 5, 2014 was a weird day. It was the weekend before the birthday of our sports editor Aubrey Kragen, who had just written a column about her dislike of ASU. The column (which I maintain was hilarious) got a lot of hate mail, and Kragen even endured threats from some of your school's lesser fans. People from both schools were questioning my decision to run the column, and I stood by her on all of it and refused to retract it. It was all in good fun, something it seems college-aged kids don't have the time to appreciate nowadays due to the need to remain in a default state of short-fused outrage.
Kragen requested the week off from covering the game so she could enjoy the game from the stands — something that becomes a bit of a novelty when you're as hard-working a beat writer as she was and you have to lose sleep over nonsense like the Josh Shaw debacle.
I was seated next to the boys from the State Press, who were silently fist pumping every Bercovici completion but remarkably poised. They were great guys and conducted themselves with considerable class despite being in enemy territory, which is one of the main reasons I'm writing this right now.
With a little more than four minutes left in the game, I started walking down the stairs from the press box toward the field, furiously tapping away on Twitter every time ASU scored a touchdown. "We're going to win, but (then-USC defensive coordinator Justin Wilcox) and his bend-but-don't break defense is finally just breaking because we have no depth," I thought to myself as I descended the steps, thinking of potential story angles or column ideas. It was raining touchdowns for ASU. By the time I got to the field, I thought to myself, "even if we win 34-32, this one isn't going to feel good."
Finally, I made it on the field, and the air wasn't tense, as it normally is in these types of situations. The crowd was nearly silent, like no one from USC had seen us blow a lead like this before. It felt like a dream sequence, where part of you thinks this is really happening, and the other part knows it can't possibly be true, but you're still forced to watch the sequence unfold.
It was third-and-10 with just over a minute to go, and Buck Allen got wrestled up near the hashmarks. The din of a huge roar came from the visitors' stands. You would have been surprised how loud that section was given its remote location in the Coliseum. I was typing on Twitter still, looking up to see the action, looking down, and thought we had converted from how loud the cheers were. USC let the game clock run down to 26 seconds before calling timeout and then Cody Kessler punted the ball away.
ASU got one to Gary Chambers to set up a pretty reasonable Hail Mary. There were seven seconds left, which ruled out a field goal. (Editor's note: kicker Zane Gonzalez did not make the trip to USC in 2014 for personal reasons.) The ball was snapped, Bercovici lofted it up high, and a couple seconds later, he fell on the ground face-first as Jaelen Strong got mobbed in the end zone by the wrong-colored jerseys.
Immediately I thought of Kragen, what a crappy week she just had, and now how the last thing she wanted to happen just happened in the most soul-shattering way possible, right before her birthday. I didn't really think of the team or what the loss meant at that point. I didn't think about Hayes Pullard being dropped back into coverage, or wonder about what Leon McQuay III was doing in the back corner of the end zone.
I just thought about one member of my staff who deserved better than that from the team she supported.
I think she gets it this week.
Euno Lee
Daily Trojan Editor-in-Chief, Fall 2014
Reach the reporter at smodrich@asu.edu or follow @StefanJModrich on Twitter.
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