ARLINGTON, Texas – The No. 24-ranked Oregon State football team have No. 6 TCU an interesting game Saturday night.
It wasn’t a blowout of early seasons of the past. The game was entertaining on all fronts. Check out QB Ryan Katz and WR James Rodgers in the postgame press conference.
Check out the main story in Sunday’s GT, which is an overview of the game. The sidebar is on the Rodgers brothers. Here’s the report card. Here’s the notebook rail. The game center is the play-by-play.
So it’s too early to say the Beavers are in another one of those slow starts. They’ll be better in Game 2. An early big win is coming.
“I think we are very close,” Rodgers said. “We were competing with a tough TCU team. Unfortunately we didn’t get the win. We have a bye and we’ll get ready for Louisville.”
The offense looked good with a new QB and a defense focused on stopping the run. Katz didn’t have the disasterous start of Matt Moore or Sean Canfield. That could bode well for his development this season.
Katz took the blame on the bad snap by C Alex Linnenkohl. He admitted he shouldn’t have called an audible there. By doing so Linnenkohl was confused and snapped it at the wrong time and tried to fix it in the middle.
“We should have stuck with the orginial play,” Katz said. “That’s on me.”
That play and missed opportunities hurt, but it was the defense that really put OSU in trouble. The Beavers couldn’t stop the run.
Their inside out pursuit has trouble with the spread option if they are not fast enough to the outside. There were too many times defenders couldn’t shed blocks.
“We knew what we wanted to do,” S Lance Mitchell said. “We didn’t get it done. Their offensive line did a good job doing what they do. And they were better today.”
TCU held the ball for 39:23 and were 11-for-17 on third downs. OSU was 4-for-11.
“I thought the difference, was how they converted on third down and ran the ball better than we did,” coach Mike Riley said.
QUICK HITS
+ P Johnny Hekker threw his second pass of his career on fake punts when he hit CB Jordan Poyer for 23 yards in the second half. The first was in the Las Vegas Bowl last season.
+ The Beavers are now 24-19-1 against the Mountain West Conference after this first meeting with TCU.
+ True freshman LB Michael Doctor played in regular defensive plays and not just on special teams.
+ Cameron Collins made the move from safety to outside linebacker a week ago and played in the game in the fourth quarter.
12 comments
tradernum1 says:
May 22, 2013
Our defense was stunningly bad.
I hope the OC doesn't over correct and emphasize the running game (which was awful), this team will have to score 50 a game against the ducks and bsu just to stay even.
I did like Riley's approach a lot, but you play to win. And Mr. James Rodgers you sir, are a stud and you don't need to yap, you need to show this team how to win.
COBever04 says:
May 22, 2013
Shock and awe is how I feel. I am in awe at the offense. It really shows what the future holds. Katz is the real deal. I am shocked that this is the fourth year that Banker has seen a spread offense and it still is apparent that he has no idea as to what to do. I am shocked that there is not a single defense in the country that can figure out how to stop a spread. Perhaps it will take one solid late hit on the QB when they keep the ball causing a career ending injury to make coaches second guess this type offense.
A group of universities should go in together and offer a million dollar prize to the defensive coordinator that figures out how to stop the spread.
Our defense is going to have a long season. Well done offense. Just get quiz involved more.
JackBeav says:
May 22, 2013
You can send your check to Justin Wilcox at UT Knoxville.
Cliff,
Since we wore the away uni's, and TCU controlled the stadium's environment, will we petition for this to be an official away game? It makes a big difference on strength of schedule when you consider it an away versus a neutral site game.
It's nice of Katz to take the leadership role and fall on the sword for the audible late in the game. But this game was lost in pieces. The missed FG… the horrible punt late in the first half… our OLB's inability to stay home (what was that all about?) or shed blocks. All these contributed to our loss more than the blown last chance.
I noticed in the fourth quarter we finally started to control the edges on defense. But it was too late by that time. Their defense was handling our left side on runs all game long. Burke Ellis looked surprisingly good out there on the right side.
ckirkpatrick says:
May 22, 2013
Strength of schedule only matters for placing in a BCS game without and automatic berth. The Beavers doen't have to worry about that. They just need to win the Pac-10 to reach the Rose Bowl.
tommiet says:
May 22, 2013
What stood out defensively was how slow our linebackers are, and how our ends were unable to turn the repeated options and sweeps inside. We have a lot of work to do defensively. Offensively Katz was good, and he's going to be great, you could just see it in him. Our future is bright, for this year. We're going to be good, and we can use this game to learn a lot from. Better than playing a Jr. College and beating them 72-0.
beavsfan10 says:
May 22, 2013
I honestly can't get over how bad our defense looked. Did Dwight Roberson, Lance Mitchell, and Gabe Miller do anything in the offseason? All three of them looked terrible. It is amazing to me that Roberson or Mitchell couldn't seem to tackle Dalton all night as he was juking and making them look pathetic. And then 'Mr Quick' Gabe Miller couldn't figure out how to stay with the RB on the option run and force Dalton inside towards all the help? You have to be kidding me. It makes me think that Darron Thomas will rush for 200 yards by himself against us. And the secondary wasn't much better as the INT's that we got were just gifts from Dalton on bad throws. Overall, its looking like Banker has NO idea how to stop a spread and teams have caught up to the gap cancellation scheme.
I think the offense will be fine in the long run and I was very impressed by Katz's arm. However, can Wilder McAndrews run block? Like even a little bit? I didn't see him get ANY push in the run game which is why Quiz had such a hard time. Time to go back to Phillips or at least insert him at guard. This looks like it could be a long season in Corvallis if we can't get some things figured out….
GO BEAVS!!!
COBever04 says:
May 22, 2013
I also would like to give hekker a congrats. though there was the one bad punt i did see two where our special teams had enough time to get down to the receiver and level them as soon as they got the ball. He has done a great job in development.
ean says:
May 22, 2013
Got to learn to stop that read option. It is 5-7 free yards every time. Although to be fair that is the best running attack we will see until the civil war. Although Dalton is a stronger runner than Thomas. I thought Mitchell looked good. Safeties are not supposed to be making every tackle. The secondary was solid. Hardin makes mistakes but that is just who he is at this point I suppose and Dockery looks even better than last year. Although a few time we could have had picks if they weren't face guarding and a good opposing team will use the face guarding to draw a PI call. Not having a true MLB is going to continue to hurt. Doctor and Collins seem to have more ability physically. I hope they can learn what the coaches want fast when need more bodies at that spot.
aaron_ says:
May 22, 2013
The LB's were awful on the whole, but they did have some good plays. Robersons int and the pass deflected. But other than that they were absolutley awful. The DE's stunk it up too. The cb's and the safteys were good.
Kahut alwas scares me. FG's and xp's are never a given in beaver country.
Hekker did alright except for that one punt.
The offense looked decent enough. But the run blocking was not where it needs to be. Quizz should be able to do his thing even against a team like TCU. Quizz is special and our line needs to play with everything theve got so as not to waste this special talent. I believe it is more effort that skill level that held them back last night. The wr's looked good as did the qb.
we should be fine this year. although BSU will be even more difficult than the toads.
JuneauJim says:
May 22, 2013
Let's all lighten up on the defense for a moment and remember that Dalton had what, his 37th start vs. Katz's first. Let's remember that TCU returned 9 offensive starters from a team that went 12-1 last year. And let's remember that TCU lead the nation in total defense the past two years.
And let's also remember that Hekker's punt at the end of the second half was THE killer. And let's also not forget how horrible he was in the bowl game last year against BYU.
All that said, this is a good OSU team and I think we know a lot more about how good we are than if we'd played Crappy U and scored 72 points…or 52 or whatever.
BeaverDon says:
May 22, 2013
Why does everybody beat around the bush. The Beavers LOST. We added to a long line of early season big games we lose; LSU, Penn State, Louiville, Cincinnati and now TCU. So we begin the season with a loss. We are not a September team, if we play TCU in November it would be different but Bobby De puts on TV in September for money.
WebTraveler says:
May 22, 2013
Too bad we don't get TCU in Reser in November with that cold, rain, and so forth. Let's see how these guys handle the lack of heat….