Cliff Kirkpatrick

LAS VEGAS – The Oregon State football is already starting to pull out incredible games. Justin Kahut won it for the Beavers with a 33-yard FG with seven seconds left.

“He just nailed that thing, and it was a big-time pressure kick,” coach Mike Riley said.

“I did not want it to be that close,” QB Sean Canfield said. “We had some opportunities in the third quarter to really put the nail down and we didn’t do that.”

“It was one of those things we didn’t want it to be a Utah game and it turned out to be a Arizona game,” said LB Keaton Kristick, comparing the two close games the Beavers had last year. “This place was a lot harder than we thought. We respect these guys.”

Read all about it in Sunday’s GT here. Here’s the game story with player reaction. Here’s a column on the Beavers looking for their identity. Here’s the Beavers report card. Check out the above coach Riley video after the game.

Lesson learned

There are several comparisons to last year’s Utah game. One was Kahut missing an extra point early. However, Riley didn’t try to go for two points to get it back the rest of the game and fall further behind.

“I wasn’t going to chase points tonight,” Riley said. “And that the end, I thought why didn’t I try. But that was on my mind.”

Bad penalties

The Beavers were dinged with three illegal substitution penalties, two on defense. They came when they were trying to change between the nickel to base defenses.

“It’s part of our rotation in defense, part of our personal groups,” Riley said. “That’s the first time it bit us. We’ve never had that problem. We will iron out this stuff. We’ll do better next week by far than we were.”

Sore Canfield

Canfield expects to be sore for a few days. He was battered on several plays, but kept getting up. There was one in the first quarter that he was leveled.

“I got hit hard, but no injuries,” Canfield said. “That’s just the way it is. It’s part of the territory.

Nickel package
The Beavers used the nickel package in the game. They used three DEs with Kevin Frahm, Ben Terry and inserted Gabe Miller. They pulled DT Latu Moala.

The LBs were Keaton Kristick, Dwight Roberson and David Pa’aluhi. The secondary had three safeties and two corners.

Big fan following.
About 6,000 Beavers fans were in Sam Boyd Stadium, according to OSU. The Beavers sold their allotment of 4,000 and more fans bought directly from UNLV.

There were two orange masses opposite the press box, on both sides of the players.

Quick hits
Game time temperature was 96 degrees. … RB Jacquizz Rodgers had his career-best run of 47 yards. He topped 100 yards for the ninth time with 166. … Redshirt freshman Jordan Bishop had five catches, which were the firsts of his career. … DE Kevin Frahm had his first career sack. … S Lance Mitchell had his first career INT.

Next week’s opponent
Looking ahead a little, next week’s opponents won big. Cincinnati defeated SE Missouri State 70-3. The No. 23 Bearcats are 2-0 and playing well.

When they come to Reser Stadium they will be the first ranked team not from the Pac-10 in Corvallis since BYU in 1977.

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Related posts:

1. Cliff: UNLV pregame/game thread
2. Cliff: UNLV press briefing
3. Cliff: UNLV prep, football notes
4. Cliff: Cal postgame
5. WSU postgame