RBs working on blocking.

The Oregon State football team shortened its practices and is about to get ready for the first game, but news still continued to be generated by the Beavers on Thursday.

“It was short, crisp stuff,” coach Mike Riley told the media afterward. “We wanted to kind of go through a whole bunch of parts of the game. We want to review it and stay fast with it before we get into specific game plan stuff.”

CB Brandon Hardin (shoulder) had surgery today. Riley said things went well, but it’s still unknown how long he’s out.

“Everything seemed to go well,” Riley said. “We don’t have any determination to how long it will be. We have to be prepared that he will miss the season.”

Players continued to switch positions to get a chance to get on the field sooner. Junior Danny Evan moved from WR to CB.

“Danny basically came to me,” Riley said. “It’s another guy that wants to get on the field somewhere. He’s doing a really good job on finding something special teams-wise that he can do, and then it’s a matter of if he can latch on, playing a position well enough to be on some special teams, then you can get on the plane. That’s what one of the goals for a guy like that.”

Starting defensive players S Lance Mitchell (abdominal) and DT Castro Masaniai (shoulder) sat out practice. They are dealing with nagging injuries. Masaniai had offseason shoulder surgery, and Mitchell’s issues have been ongoing for two years.

The Beavers addressed the TE issue by adding a walk-on to the roster in Austin Slade-Matautia from Iolani High in Hawaii. Check out his highlight video below. It’s mostly of him as a DE.

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