Sometimes everything goes right and it did Saturday for the Oregon State football team.
The Beavers (5-5, 2-5 Pac-12) moved closer to a bowl game with a major upset over No. 6 ASU 35-27. The win is Oregon State's first over a ranked opponent since beating UCLA in 2012 and it's first over a top 10 team since beating No. 9 UA in 2010.
Senior quarterback Sean Mannion found redshirt freshman Jordan Villamin with just under 11 minutes remaining in the game to take the lead that Oregon State would not relinquish.
With the loss, the Sun Devils (8-2, 5-2 Pac-12) were effectively eliminated from College Football Playoff contention and fall back behind UCLA in the Pac-12 South standings due to the head-to-head tiebreaker.
In the first half, the Beavers ran the ball incredibly well, scoring two touchdowns on runs of over 60 yards. First, junior running back Storm Woods beat ASU for 78 yards and then later in the first quarter, senior running back Terron Ward found the end zone from 66 yards away to put Oregon State up 14-3. The two backs ended up combining for 273 yards on 30 carries.
The Sun Devils battled back though, scoring 21 straight points to give themselves a 24-14 lead at halftime.
The second half was dominated by the Beavers as they held the Sun Devils to just three points in the half and scored 21 of their own, including an interception returned for a touchdown by redshirt senior linebacker Michael Doctor with under two minutes left to seal the upset win.
One of the biggest plays of the game came at the end of the first half when ASU's sophomore kicker Zane Gonzalez missed a 30-yard field goal that would have put the Sun Devils up by 13 points at halftime and could have changed how the teams played the final minutes.
Mannion was the star of the game for the Beavers, completing 19 of 33 passes for 251 yards and two scores, propelling Oregon State. His favorite target was sophomore wide receiver Victor Boldin who caught seven passes for 72 yards and one of Mannion's two touchdowns.
Defensively, senior cornerback Steven Nelson was locked up tightly in a battle with ASU's junior wide receiver Jaelen Strong and came away victorious. While Strong had nine catches for 103 yards, he was targeted 18 times and did not score a touchdown, something he is not accustomed to.
Reach the reporter at mtonis@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @Tonis_The_Tiger
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