STILLWATER, Okla. - At the conclusion of Arizona State’s convincing 17-34 loss to No. 11 Oklahoma State, plenty of what was forecasted to happen in the game did, in fact, occur within the brick fortress of Boone Pickens Stadium.

The Cowboys carved up the Sun Devils with explosive plays, then capitalized on offensive surges with backbreaking tempo. Spencer Sanders played the part of a proper gunslinger, passing for 268 yards and two touchdowns while uniting the ground and aerial attacks together in perfect synchrony. Running back Dominic Richardson contributed 131 yards and a touchdown, and Sanders followed close behind with 54 yards and a score.

On defense, Oklahoma State’s fierce front seven accelerated the clock of quarterback Emory Jones and worked to quickly pinch his room to scramble. Jones was sacked three times and threw away the ball several times in the face of pressure. The Florida transfer completed 50 percent of his passes for 223 yards and one touchdown. The Cowboys were a blockade on third down, holding ASU to just two conversions out of 13 attempts.

ASU was expected to lose to Oklahoma State as a 12.5-point underdog, and they did. Penalties were expected to resurface, and they did. Rain was expected to fall despite early blue skies and friendly cloud cover, and the weather did indeed thoroughly drench the two teams later in the evening.

The unexpected is what should give the Sun Devils and their supporters some encouragement amid the sting of defeat.

Wide receiver Elijhah Badger had a performance chock full of new career-high numbers. He operated as the team’s primary ‘Z’ wide receiver threat and saw reps in the slot role as well. The redshirt sophomore caught six of nine targets for 91 yards and his first collegiate receiving touchdown.

Badger scored twice on rushing plays last season that utilized his unique open-field playmaking abilities. He did not look like the gadget player anymore because he is no longer the same receiver who struggled with confidence in mastering the playbook, nor is he the freshman that was ruled academically ineligible in 2020.

Instead, Badger looked like a legitimate weapon for the offense, finally ready to blossom into a feature role and produced a breakout game that brewed behind the scenes for some time.

“It’s getting really comfortable,” Badger said postgame about the offense’s development. “It’s going to get better; we’ll work on it. Just a little fallback, but we’re going to be back next week.

“I’m just following what the team, what the offense, whatever the coaches are calling and doing what I got to do.”

Badger was reliable in all lengths of the field, creating broad throwing windows for Jones through his breaks and at the top of his routes. He moved the chains on 3rd-and-18 on the last play of the third quarter. The play was a crafty showcase of the 6-2, 190-pound wideout’s ability to sell vertical, break back to the quarterback for sudden separation, and use his athletic gifts after the catch.

Two plays later, on the heels of a dynamite-infused burst by running back Xazavian Valladay, Badger drifted through Oklahoma State’s zone coverage toward the front left pylon. Jones fired a tad behind, but Badger rotated to pluck the ball off his hip and scored without breaking stride. The linkup brought ASU within a field goal.

“We’re excited about his trend,” ASU offensive coordinator Glenn Thomas said. “He’s definitely trending in the right direction. The more comfort level and more experience he gets out there, I think that’s going to continue to grow. I’m excited about what he’s going to do moving forward. I think he could be a big piece of what we’re trying to get done.”

The offense has playcalling issues to iron out. Thomas deviated from the quick-hitting approach he implemented against Northern Arizona, which used short hitches and screens to get receivers the ball in space. The plays against Oklahoma State gravitated to the intermediate depth of the field and took longer to develop against the pass rush, a punchy group that frequently overpowered ASU’s offensive line.

“There were a lot of good things and a lot of bad things,” Badger offered. “I feel like we executed well. But we need to execute better in the red zone.”

“We felt like we were in a good place,” Thomas said. “We were optimistic; obviously, we came out in the first drive of the second half and did some good things. I think we’re in a great place there, and we’ve got to stay on the field to help our defense if nothing else and convert on some third downs.”

Middle linebacker Kyle Soelle credited the team’s conditioning for helping the defense contend with Oklahoma State’s hurry-up style but acknowledged cracks emerged in the fourth quarter.

After Badger’s touchdown, Oklahoma State piled more points onto their lead over its following two drives. The Cowboys answered back immediately three plays and 65 yards later, then gradually exhausted ASU over a grueling 13-play slog.

“It wears on you later on in the game,” Soelle remarked on Oklahoma State’s pace. “I feel like we’re a well-conditioned team; they just have a really up-tempo [offense]. It’s something we’ll look at tomorrow and go from there. But I think we handled it well throughout the whole game. We competed.”

For the past three years, the senior has molded himself into a dependable centerpiece for the Sun Devils. A team captain, Soelle follows orders with a direct approach and assertive leadership. When ASU’s defensive integrity began to crumble, it was hardly a surprise that Soelle met the challenge head-on.

It was eye-opening, however, just how effective Soelle was at patching up his team’s vulnerabilities.

Soelle had 16 tackles on Saturday, half of which were solo efforts and one ending up as an assist on a tackle for loss. The next closest Sun Devil had six. His numbers replaced a previous career high of 15 tackles against Oregon State in 2021. Soelle also pressured Sanders once and picked him off in the red zone during the second quarter.

“He did a nice job,” ASU head coach Herm Edwards said. “He did. He’s been in a lot of football games, that guy. Between him and Merlin (Robertson), I feel like every time I turn around, they’re still here. They played their tails off. They played hard.”

When asked about his takeaways from the game that might help ASU in its remaining ten games, Soelle deferred the question until after he got a chance to watch the film. But this loss certainly has a better silver lining than the implosion against BYU a year ago.

The ASU offense proved across various fragments of the game that it can click. Giovanni Sanders took a simple streak 73 yards to the cusp of the end zone, producing the offense's biggest play for the second consecutive week. Valladay went over 100 rushing yards in back-to-back games. Jones did not throw an interception. ASU committed zero false starts.

There is measurable growth and plenty of football to be played. ASU will not fly out of Stillwater with an upset win, so the negative projections will persist. But favorable outlooks were uncovered and edged into the spotlight.

Soelle crashed through his ceiling and validated himself as the team’s best defender. Badger could become the first go-to target in ASU’s receiving corps since Brandon Aiyuk.

Many wrote off ASU’s identity long before the calendar year began. The team’s performance against Oklahoma State indicates there is still much more to discover about the Sun Devils.

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