Arizona Bears Down. Oregon State Does Not.
Oregon State got off to a near perfect start Saturday night in Tucson. The Beavers took the opening kickoff and drove the length of the field for the first score. Both Damien Martinez and Deshaun Fenwick had carries, and DJ Uiagalelei had completions to Anthony Gould, Jesiah Irish, Silas Bolden, and finally Jack Velling for the touchdown.
After that, successes were few and far between the rest of the way, and mostly isolated, as Arizona outplayed and outcoached 11th ranked Oregon State.
The Wildcats answered with 10 straight points before the Aiden Chiles package led to a game tieing Aticus Sappington 35 yard field goal, mostly due to a 52 yard reception by Gould. But instead of taking a halftime lead on another field goal that would have been well within Sappington’s range, Coach Jonathan Smith chose to attempt a fake field goal that the Beavers had already botched once on the final play of the first half.
The play had no chance of succeeding, and the score remained 10-10.
The OSU defense held the Cats to a second half opening field goal, but the Beavers were unable to get much going until a late 3rd quarter drive that ended with a Bolden sweep for a go ahead touchdown early in the 4th quarter.
Oregon State didn’t threaten again until after Arizona scored twice, on a pair of touchdown passes from Noah Fifita, who was making his 4th career start, to Michael Wiley, the second of which came with only 2:22 left in a fast moving game that had only about half the possessions of a normal college football game.
That put the ‘Cats up 10, instead of 7 had the Beavers simply have taken the field goal before halftime.
Uiagalelei then drove the Beavers 75 yards on 4 completions in 44 seconds, the last a 20 yard scoring strike to Jimmy Valsin III.
But instead of tieing it, Arizona still led 27-24 with only 1:38 left, and Oregon State had to attempt an onside kick. Which went out of bounds, and the ‘Cats had the ball, and the win, their first over a ranked opponent since 2018.
“They made a few more plays than us, and I could have managed the end of the first half a lot better,” Smith said after the game.
Oregon State’s defense was once again porous in a conference road game, especially after the catch, a result of poor tackling. Poor special teams coverage also set Arizona up with shorter fields, both of which led to ‘Cat scoring drives.
Arizona played well, but didn’t do anything surprising, and was aided by poor play calling by Oregon State at times, and some of the worst game and clock management possible.
Oregon State was as unprepared as in any game since the LA Bowl, which was simultaneously surprising and disappointing coming off a bye week.
The now 6-2 and 3-2 Beavers fell into a 4 way tie for 4th with UCLA, Utah, and Arizona, instead of being tied with Oregon for 3rd in the Pac-12 heading to November, and head next to Boulder, to play Colorado (4-4, 1-4) next Saturday night. The Buffs lost to UCLA 28-16 today.
The CFP is now unattainable in any reasonable scenario, and any remaining hope of reaching the final conference championship game will hinge on winning out in November, and still require help.
And not electing to not take points when available, a recurring mistake that cost the Washington State game, as well as the Washington game last year. And others before that.
(AP Photo)