Sun Devils Not Able to Escape With Win Against Stanford

Football is a game of inches, and the near-misses were not kind to Arizona State in its 15-14 loss to Stanford on Saturday. 

Elijhah Badger’s cleat was just out of bounds on an incredible one-handed catch on 4th and 19th in the closing seconds of the game. It would have set up for a Carter Brown chip-shot and, barring any craziness, an ASU win. 

Speaking of Brown, the true freshman was 9/10 on field goals entering Saturday. His only field goal attempt Saturday was just a few feet short of the goalpost. 

A football game is not won or lost on one play (or two), but those two small instances show how close ASU was to escaping The Farm with a win.

The Sun Devils provided bend-don’t-break defense throughout the game. The Cardinal tallied 398 total yards but did not find the end zone. It was kicker Joshua Karty who supplied all 15 points through five field goals, including the go-ahead 47-yard make with 6:42 to go in the game. 

Boxing matches don’t always end in knockouts, and Karty and the Cardinal landed enough jabs to get the job done. 

Eight Sun Devil penalties for 75 yards aided the Cardinal on a few drives to get on the right side of the field to add to their score, and the ASU offense was quiet in the second half, tallying zero points. 

Badger had a career-high 118 yards and a touchdown and has solidified himself as the No. 1 wide receiver for the Devils. Aside from him, the passing game only mustered 109 yards. The question moving forward for Shaun Aguano will be who will be overseeing the offense next Saturday in Colorado: Jones or Trenton Bourguet.

One play doesn’t dictate a loss and one game shouldn’t do the same for a coach’s future, but a conference road win on Saturday would have been another nice line on Aguano’s resumé to try to remove the interim tag off his title. 

The Sun Devils will round out its season with Colorado, No. 9 UCLA, Washington State, Oregon State and Arizona. 

Plenty of questions remain moving forward for this 2022 team.