Video by Stefan Modrich | Assistant Sports Editor
It's tough when seemingly nothing goes your way, and that's exactly what the Stanford football team experienced in its loss Saturday night.
The Cardinal (4-3, 2-2 Pac-12) fell 26-10 to ASU at Sun Devil Stadium Saturday. The loss makes this year the first since 2009 that the Cardinal have lost three regular season games.
The Sun Devils (5-1, 3-1 Pac-12) seemingly could do no wrong, moving the ball up and down the field on Stanford's vaunted defense, accumulating 356 total yards.
MORE: See all Stanford game coverage
Coach David Shaw said he was not happy with his team, which only mustered 126 yards and three points through the first three quarters.
"The bottom line is we did not play well anywhere," Shaw said. "Not up to our standard."
The Cardinal's defense, which had given up just 10 points per game so far this season, was overmatched at times by ASU. Senior linebacker Kyle Anderson said the unit made too many mistakes.
"We need to do better," Anderson said. "We made a lot of small mistakes and small mistakes lead to big plays. If we do our jobs, we can be a great defense, but if we don't do our job, we're not good."
Senior quarterback Kevin Hogan completed 19 of 39 attempts for 202 yards without senior wide receiver Devon Cajuste. Shaw said he thinks the Cajuste injury played a role in the poor play of the offense.
"We missed him, there's no question about it," Shaw said. "Especially when you look into making position-changing plays. That's all the guy's done for a year and a half and we missed that aspect."
Shaw acknowledged that Hogan did not play his best, but the pieces around him did not do their jobs to help him out.
"Kevin wasn't the issue, it's not his issue when he gets hit," Shaw said. "We threw a couple balls up with one-on-one coverage and gave guys opportunities to make a play, and you could say that the ball could be a little bit here or a little bit there, but we've got to make those plays."
Maybe the biggest play of the game came with four minutes remaining in the first half when senior wide receiver Ty Montgomery fumbled a punt at his own 12 yard line, which was recovered by ASU and resulted in a touchdown. Shaw said that Montgomery was trying to make a play to spark his team, but it just backfired.
"I've been fortunate enough to be around some great football players, this level and the next, and when things aren't going well, those guys have that sense of urgency that 'I need to make something happen,'" Shaw said. "It was a great punt, the kid launched it, Ty has to let it go, but here we are, we need somebody to make a play and Ty wants to go back there and get his hands on the ball because he knows he can make a play for us. It was an error in judgement."
Three losses in college football usually dooms a team from serious bowl and conference championship conversation, but senior linebacker Kevin Anderson is focusing on one game at a time.
"We can't think like that, we have to think about the next game," Anderson said. "If we think about what's going to happen at the end of the season, we have X many of losses, we're going to get ourselves in mind games and we're not going to execute as well as we can. We've got to win each week, and if we do that, we'll get the outcome we want."
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Reach the reporter at mtonis@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @Tonis_The_Tiger
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