Beavers Shut Down Cougars
Oregon State Coach Jonathan Smith's 2022 checklist tour cheched off another couple of boxes Saturday night. Oregon State beat Washington State 23-10 to break an 8 game losing streak in the Northwest state school border war rivalry. Smith had never beaten the Cougs as a head coach, nor had his predecesor ever do it. Not since the era of Mike Riley had the Beavers been able to beat the Cougars.
But it was how the Beavers won their Homecoming game (literally and ceremonially; OSU came in after back to back road games, and 4 of their last 5 away from Reser) that checked off another important box. Oregon State beat an air raid team by a pair of touchdowns with a backup quarterback, in large part because of the Beaver defense.
And it wasn't an out of nowhere performance. At least at Reser, the Beavers have become a strength, after being at least a weak spot, if not an outright liability for years. After holding both Boise St. and USC to 17 points, Defensive Coordinator Trent Bray's bunch shut Washington State down to 10 points.
As a result, Oregon State is 5-2, against a schedule where going 2-5 was a distinct possibility. Waoutshington State quarterback Cameron Ward, easily one of the most elusive QBs in the west, out passed and outgained Oregon State's Ben Gulbranson, who was making his second start in place of injured Chance Nolan. But not by that much. And the Beavers sacked Ward 6 times, recorded 7 more hurries, broke up 10 passes, and picked one off.
The sack and pressure numbers weren't higher mostly because Oregon State often rushed only 2, and deployed 2 linebackers for containment and cleanup assignments, and dropped 7 into coverage. It took targets away from Ward, and made for tighter windows on some of the targets he did find.
Meanwhile, Oregon State substantially out-rushed Washington State, 203 yards to 23. The absence of Nakia Watson, Washington State's starting RB due to injury, and in the first half, Cougar starting guard Grant Stevens in the first half as a result of a questionable targeting call in the second half of WSU's lost last week to USC had something to do with that.
But so to did the Beavers' Damien Martinez, who ran for a game high 111 yards on a game high 16 carries.
That included a 50 yard run that set up Oregon State's second touchdown. It's the second week in a row that Martinez had the biggest single rushing play of the week that in neither case won the game, but in both cases changed the game, swinging momentum and points in Oregon State's favor when the outcome was still very much in doubt.
And that third year freshman QB Gulbranson, who had a QBR of 20.7 in the Utah game he played 3/4 of in relief of the injured Nolan? After improving that to 59.2 against Stanford, Gulbranson shook off a couple of horrendous "chuck it up" decisions early, one of which ended in an interception, to post a higher QBR than Ward.
Gulbranson only completed half of his passes, 12 of 24, for 141 yards, but Ward, above, only hit on 46&, 25 of 54 as a result of the OSU defense.
Oregon State also got a surprising boost at TE, where Jack Velling, who has had to fill in for Luke Musgrave since he was injured in the penultimate play of the Fresno State game, had a team leading 4 catches for a team high 63 yards.
Even missing one of their key receivers, the injured Reynard Bell, the still 11 pronged Cougar receiving corp massively out-stated the Beavers. But being an advanced Air Raid attack, that was a given going into the game.
And when Anthony Gould grabbed a 17 yard touchdown out of a crowd at the goal line midway in the third quarter, which equaled the point production of the Coug receiving collective, Oregon State had opened a 17-3 lead it would never relinquish.
Wrap a pair of Jack Colletto touchdown runs for the first and last scores of the game and Happy Retro Benny was never happier than when the darknes settled in Saturday night.
Oregon State (5-2, 2-2 in the Pac-12) continues their only home stand of the season next Saturday night against Colorado. The 1-5, 1-2 in conference Buffalos withstood a game tieing field goal as time ran out in regulation by Cal, and took their first win of the season, with an overtime touchdown for a 20-13 win over the Bears.
A win next Saturday night will qualify the Beavers for post-season play more than a week before Halloween. Think about that against the backdrop of the last several seasons. or the several key injuries Oregon State has had to overcome.
In the meantime, cue the fight song!
Andy_Wooldridge@yahoo.com
(Photos by Andy Wooldridge)