Notre Dame Demolishes Demolished Oregon State
It took until the second half of the 90th Sun Bowl, and after (soon not to be) 19th ranked Oregon State had contributed significantly to their own demist, but 16th ranked Notre Dame eventually blew the depleted Beavers off the field, on their way to the 40-8 win that is the most dominant bowl win in the Irish’s considerable history.
Trailing only 7-0 late in the second quarter, and well within reach of a 1 score game at the break, Oregon State inexplicably attempted a 4th down conversion in their own territory. When the play failed terribly, it gifted Notre Dame half a field, which the Irish quickly turned into a 14-0 halftime lead.
Any thought that former Oregon State Head Coach Jonathan Smith leaving would also end idiotic 4th down play calls was dispelled, and confirmed when another one occurred in the 3rd quarter, and similarly flipped field position in a field position game.
Notre Dame took the opening kickoff of the 2nd half and proceeded to score on their next 2 drives, and 4 of their 5 second half possessions.
Meanwhile the already decimated Beavers lost Silas Bolden to a pulled ham string late in the 2nd quarter, and running back Deshaun Fenwick to a rolled ankle midway in the second half, and never got anything meaningful going until past midway in the 4th quarter, and the Irish were already up 33-0.
Ben Gulbranson completed a 33 yard touchdown pass to Jimmy Valsin III, and Oregon State avoided its first shutout since 2017. This after being shutout in the first half for the first time since 2019.
But the Beavers generated less than 200 yards of offense, and only had 2 net yards rushing. The Irish rolled up 468 yards with an offense comprised mostly of backups against the Oregon State defense that was not nearly as decimated as their offense.
Notre Dame dominated time of possession 40:11 - 19:49, after a 20:32 - 9:18 advantage in the first half.
Oregon State got its first 3rd down conversion with less than 2 minutes to go in the game, and after they had finally converted a 4th down to keep the drive that produced their only score alive.
Both teams were missing double digit players due to early opt outs for the NFL draft and exits via the transfer portal, but Notre Dame barely missed a beat, while Oregon State was thoroughly beaten.
One big difference was Notre Dame had its coaching staff intact, while Oregon State fielded a shell of an interim staff, with new Head Coach Trent Bray pacing the sidelines instead of coaching.
Because of the massive player losses, and the departure of most of the better and more experienced members of the coaching staff, the Oregon State team that took the field in El Paso wasn’t close to the team seen this season or last, though it was what a sellout Sun Bowl crowd and a large CBS national broadcast audience saw.
Neither is it the team that will next take the field against Idaho State at the end of August. But most of the size, experience, and talent on the field for the Beavers in the Sun Bowl will be gone, a part of a huge graduating class.
The lack of size was more concerning than the lack of experience, as Oregon State fielded a team that is smallish for position at almost every position, and the few exceptions were graduating players.
Coach Bray and his new coordinators can contrive better schemes and game plans, but there is a limited amount of physical growth possible, even with the best of training programs.
Hopefully, with what will be much smaller margins of error, even playing a Mt West schedule, Coach Bray will at least dispense with the reckless 4th down calls that cost better Beaver teams time and again, and multiple games, during the last several years. It will be hard enough to beat good opponents without doing things to beat themselves.
Finding a quarterback from the options of a 4 star transfer with zero playing experience and a transfer that did lead back to back FCS playoff runs (but it was FCS) will be important. But rebuilding an offensive line that was the backbone of a team that won 18 of 23 games in one stretch, but had no ready replacements against Notre Dame, will be even more important. Especially while simultaneously almost totally rebuilding the defense.
The Sun Bowl was supposed to be a celebration of one of the best outgoing groups of OSU players, a jump start on next season, and a chance to demonstrate that Oregon State belongs in the top tier of college football programs. It was none of those. And gave no indication that the program is anywhere close to being capable of any of those things.
Normally we close game summaries with a call to “Cue The Fight Song”, but there wasn’t much worth playing the fight song for in this one. Probably because the program that signaled its commitment by sending only 40% of the band followed through with a 40% effort overall.