One early miscue epitomized the fate of the ASU football team on Saturday against Oregon State.

Following the Sun Devils’ first drive of the game, junior punter Trevor Hankins couldn’t cleanly handle what appeared to be a perfect snap from sophomore Thomas Ohmart.

Hankins simply dropped the ball — and so did the Sun Devils.

ASU could not build on its near-upset of Georgia in its previous game and instead fell to Oregon State 28-17 at Sun Devil Stadium in its Pac-10 opener.

“Football’s a game of being ready to play,” ASU coach Dennis Erickson said. “If you’re not ready to play and you get behind the eight ball, you’re going to get beat, and that’s exactly what happened. I give Oregon State credit — they came out and did what they had to do to win.”

Hankins recovered the muffed snap, but it gave the Beavers (3-2, 1-1 Pac-10) a first down on the Sun Devils 18-yard line, which they cashed in on three plays later when sophomore running back Jacquizz Rodgers took the ball into the end zone from one yard out to give OSU an early 7-0 lead.

And in a blink of an eye, it was 14-0.

In less than two minutes, OSU managed to capitalize on an inept ASU offense, another short field and a Sun Devil defense that showed more chinks in its armor than it had the entire season.

After a second consecutive three-and-out drive from the Sun Devils (2-2, 0-1 Pac-10), a 33-yard punt return by OSU junior James Rodgers gave the Beavers possession on the ASU 41-yard line. His brother, Jacquizz then finished the job when he bounced a run out to his left side and dashed 32 yards into the corner of the end zone to give the Beavers a two-touchdown advantage with 8:38 to play in the first quarter.

“If we have a short field to defend, we should come out the same way every time [as] if they were backed up in the end zone,” ASU senior safety Jarrell Holman said. “Our mentality is to get stops and get the ball back no matter where we’re at, so that’s no excuse for us not stopping them.”

ASU answered on its next possession when it capped a 10-play, 62-yard drive off with 35-yard field goal from freshman kicker Bobby Wenzig, but that was the only time the Sun Devil offense would put points on the board in the first half.

OSU tacked on another touchdown when a juggling catch in the back of the end zone by James Rodgers on the first play of the second quarter was reviewed and upheld, and that was essentially all the Beavers would need because of ASU’s continuing struggle with not being able to put together scoring drives.

“Right now, offensively, for us to come back like that is very, very difficult,” Erickson said.

But it wasn’t like the Sun Devils didn’t have their chances in Beaver territory.

ASU put together a 10-play drive — mostly due to the jolt sophomore running back Ryan Bass provided in the backfield and the sure hands of senior wide receiver Chris McGaha — and got down to the OSU 20 midway through the second quarter, but a Bass fumble on first down brought the possession to a screeching halt.

“We’re shooting ourselves in the foot,” McGaha said, who finished the game with a career-high 15 catches and 165 receiving yards. “We’d get on their side of the 50-yard-line, and we would just have penalties or turn the ball over, and we couldn’t get a full drive together.”

Then after a 53-yard field goal attempt by OSU junior kicker Justin Kahut was well short with 2:06 to play before halftime, ASU executed its two-minute offense and drove inside the OSU 30-yard line.

But ASU senior quarterback Danny Sullivan could not connect with McGaha on a fourth-and-four passing play, and the Sun Devils once again came away from a potential scoring drive empty-handed and went into the locker room down 21-3.

“We’re moving the ball, [but] we just get in one situation where we’re getting stuck,” Sullivan said. “[We’ve] got to climb that hump.”

ASU came out reenergized in the second half and put together a 77-yard drive on its first possession after intermission, capped by a one-yard touchdown run by senior Dimitri Nance that cut the Beavers’ lead to 21-10 with over 10 minutes still to play in the third quarter.

But the ASU offense never got into OSU territory after that until a 94-yard drive at the end of the contest, when the result of the game had virtually been decided.

“We had opportunities going in there,” Erickson said. “[We] just didn’t make a throw, we didn’t make a catch, whatever the case may be.”

OSU put the game away at the 7:07 mark of the fourth quarter when a two-yard touchdown pass from Canfield to senior wide receiver Damola Adeniji extended the Beavers’ lead to 28-10.

Sullivan finished the game with 32 completions on 58 pass attempts for 338 yards and one touchdown, but he again struggled with his accuracy on longer passing plays and heard boos and chants for freshman quarterback Brock Osweiler from the fans at Sun Devil Stadium.

“I know he’s pretty upset,” McGaha said. “The whole crowd is chanting [for] Brock, and I felt bad for him, because I know he’s playing his heart out. I know Danny’s not going to give up on us, and we’re not going to give up on him.”

Erickson did not give a concrete answer after the game whether Sullivan will remain the starter when the Sun Devils travel to Pullman to face Washington State on Saturday.

“We’ve got to evaluate it and see where we’re at,” he said. “My gut feeling is yeah, he will be [the starter] for the Washington State game. We’re going to do whatever it takes for us to win, and I’ve got to evaluate that, because I owe it to everybody on this team.”