Sun Devil students to travel to Peach Bowl to continue support for the Cinderella football season
The past two seasons of Sun Devil football have been characterized by disappointment and despondency. The team had a combined 6-18 record as it saw a change in coaching staff due to NCAA recruiting violations and a shifting landscape of conferences. In Arizona State University’s first year in the newly aligned Big12 Conference, the expectations weren’t high, even for the most loyal fans.
AJ Tyndall, a junior at the Thunderbird School of Global Management studying global management, has attended nearly every ASU home game since he has been enrolled as a Sun Devil. Coming into the season, he felt he had relatively lofty expectations for the Sun Devils, predicting they could win enough games to be placed in a bowl game.
“To be perfectly honest, I wasn't expecting too much,” Tyndall said. “I was expecting maybe a five or six-win season at the very best because I always like to set my expectations a little high, even though in the past they've sort of crumbled.”
However, while these expectations may have seemed optimistic at the time, they paled in comparison to what the Sun Devils would go on to accomplish this season. ASU shocked fans and foes alike, sporting a dominant 11-2 record and easily winning the Big 12 Championship. The Sun Devils did not just place themselves in a bowl game but earned themselves a spot at the historic Peach Bowl, where they will be hosting a College Football Playoff Game for the first time in school history.
“To see where this team is now, it's nothing short of impressive,” Tyndall said. “I mean, I legitimately could not have asked for a better season… This year, I think seeing the whole team come together, and the whole community rally around the team and seeing just how special it can really be when everyone shows out.”
Tyndall has witnessed a lot of ASU’s hallmark successes this year, traveling to Tucson for the Territorial Cup to watch the Sun Devils trounce the rival Wildcats and to Dallas to watch ASU be crowned Big12 Champions. He said he had noticed the Sun Devil community displayed its support both at home and on the road.
“It was really lovely just to be able to go and see that – even in a city as far away as Dallas – there's still lots of Sun Devil fans in the Sun Devil community,” Tyndall said. “I sat next to someone who I had never met before, but by the end of the game, we were good friends and just talking the whole time. So it's just a really fantastic experience and a fantastic community to be a part of.”
Tyndall will hope to see the Sun Devils continue their success as he is making his way out to Atlanta with his family to watch ASU’s playoff debut vs Texas. The logistics of the trip were made easier because he went home for the holidays in Richmond, Virginia, resulting in a much more manageable distance to travel. He is hoping the game will be an epochal experience for him and his brother, who will become a Sun Devil himself in the 2025-2026 school year.
“We just figured it would be a fantastic family trip to sort of go out and experience that, especially because my brother has just recently made his decision to attend ASU as a freshman next year as well,” Tyndall said. “So for him as a future Sun Devil now to go out and have that experience, we just figured it would be fantastic to experience even more of this miracle season.”
While Tyndall has lived through some of the darkest days of Sun Devil football, first-year business students Isabella Reilly and Tatum Semmens’s only taste of supporting their college team has been one of pure bliss.
Like Tyndall, the two roommates have been to many of ASU’s home games and have traveled to Tucson for the Territorial Cup and to Dallas for the Big 12 Championship. Semmens said the Week 13 win against BYU was when she felt the team and the community was truly special.
“You could just feel the energy, you could feel the students knowing that like this was gonna be a big game,” Semmens said. “that's kind of when I realized ‘Oh, this is a good season, this is a Cinderella story… It's been just insane, especially as a freshman, coming in and this being their first experience of ASU. I definitely chose the right school.”
Semmens and Reilly will also both be traveling to the Peach Bowl to continue supporting the Sun Devils. Reilly will be flying with her family while Semmens had to get a little more creative. She will be taking an overnight Greyhound bus from Nashville – where she is staying for winter break — to Atlanta before taking that same bus back after the game.
Reilly says she is hopeful for the Sun Devils in this game, but no matter the outcome, she is grateful for the experience.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing that a lot of people don't get, so I'm super excited, and I'm really really happy,” Reilly said. “We're super grateful to be able to travel to these games because a lot of people aren't able to.”
Tyndall has a similar sense of thankfulness, especially considering the bleak state Sun Devil football seemed to be merely a few months ago. He has seen firsthand how the culture has turned around and is glad to have been a part of it.
“I've been going to games for the past three years and it was a little bit sad to go to the stadium at the end of the year and see it almost completely empty,” Tyndall said. “So it’s been quite an amazing experience, and I think it's fantastic now that the whole Valley and all the students are really rallying around this team.”
The Peach Bowl is set to kick off at 11:00 a.m. MST / 1:00 p.m. EST New Year’s Day, where the No.4 ranked Sun Devils host the No.5 Texas Longhorns — with students like Semmens and Reilly hoping to ride this Cinderella story into 2025 and beyond.