Arizona State no longer controls its own destiny, but the Sun Devils still have a good chance to make the Pac-12 championship game if they can manage to take care of business the next two weeks.

Up next: Washington State. … Yes, the same Wazzu team that beat Oregon State.

But let’s take a look back at the OSU game and a look forward to the WSU game and the improvements that must be made in the week between.

Offensively:

• Execute: They just need to finish plays, and they need to do it consistently.

The Sun Devils had a 24-14 lead at halftime, but it wasn’t as though they were dominant offensively. They accumulated 16 yards of total offensive on their first three possessions. They managed to score on the next three drives (though on the fourth possession, ASU only tallied seven yards of offense, but it was enough to put it in FG position because it was off an Oregon State turnover) but missed the field goal attempt on the seventh possession of the game. Their eighth, and final drive of the first half, ended in an interception.

It was good enough to give Arizona State a 10-point lead.

Had the Sun Devils come out for the second half with a reinvigorated attitude, perhaps they could’ve put some drives together, but instead they struggled to establish tempo and their two best drives of the second half (40 and 35 yards) both ended in punts. In fact, the entire drive sheet of the second half reads like a “how not win a football game” cheat sheet: punt, punt, field goal, punt, interception, turnover on downs.

When asked about what the problems were, quarterback Taylor Kelly said, “We were slow to execute on third downs. We couldn’t get our tempo going.”

However, statistically, the Sun Devils were right about at their season average (39 percent) when it came to their 7-of-17 third down conversions.

• Get the run game going

Arizona State has struggled with its run game all season. From the 1.4 yard per rush performance against USC to the 4.2 yard per rush performance against Notre Dame, the Sun Devils have been all sorts of confusing when it comes to how their run game will show up against different opponents.

Against Oregon State, ASU rushed the ball 31 times for 103 yards and 0 touchdowns (3.3 yards per rush). The yard per rush average isn’t terrible, in fact, it’s right around their conference average (3.7). However, what’s slightly more concerning is that the Sun Devils weren’t able to be more productive against the Beavers' defense, which is in the middle of the Pac-12, giving up 4.4 yards per rush. However, the Beavers have given up the most rushing touchdowns of any Pac-12 team this season (20).

D.J. Foster and this offensive line need to find a way to make the run game effective. It would’ve helped Kelly against the Beavers. The Sun Devils must be balanced.

Defensively:

• Not giving up big plays.

Oregon State scored on rushes of 78 and 66 yards and a pass play of 67 yards. The Beavers accumulated 42 percent of their total offense on those three plays, which isn’t what a defensive coordinator wants to see.

Overall, the Sun Devil defense gave up 14 plays of 10 or more yards. That was just about average for ASU. Coming into the game, Arizona State had given up 125 plays of 10 or more yards (14 per game).

If those two rushing touchdowns are taken out of the Beavers' rushing statistics, their yard-per-rush-average drops from 6.7 to 2.9, which would’ve been a very nice performance for the Sun Devils. The same is true with Oregon State’s passing statistics. If the 67-yard passing touchdown is removed from the statistics, then Sean Mannion only averaged 5.8 yards per pass attempt.

This comes down to miscommunications, which coach Todd Graham said were a problem in the loss to Oregon State. With the big-play ability of Washington State (the Cougars have recorded a nation-best 202 plays of 10 or more yards), this is an area that Arizona State must improve on in the next week.