Strangely negative article on the Beavers 2005 team

Herald and News: Klamath Falls, Oregon :: Beavers' offseason has been bizarre

First off, even though this writer is previewing the 2005 OSU Beavers football team and making a prediction, he has to bring up the offseason incidents multiple times. Not sure how important that is to rehash, but maybe they think their readers forgot about it already. Let's take a look at some of the excerpts.

On the offseason

"Aside from the $93 million put into renovating Reser Stadium, the spotlight has been on Corvallis because of a string of bizarre criminal activities"

...Then he rehashes all of the incidents, Rudolph, Walker, Siegert....

"None of the six players arrested were kicked off the team by head coach Mike Riley."

What's that comment? Why say that? You obviously think some of them should have been kicked off the team. Most other articles have simply said that they were suspended for the first few games. It also makes no mention of the new disciplinary policy that DeCarolis implemented.

On Quarterbacks:

"At quarterback, the Beavers will need to replace the talented, but mistake prone Derek Anderson..."

There's a nice back door compliment.

"The smart money is on Moore, who transferred from UCLA after being beaten out by Drew Olsen as the signal caller in Westwood, Calif."

Even this comment is somewhat negative..."beaten out". From what I understand he got injured and that's how he lost his job. The new coaching staff like Olson better than him.

On the running game

"In fact, the Beavers ranked dead last in Division 1 yards per game, at a horrid 70.7 ypg clip in 2004."

OK, it was horrid.

"Walker is a former blue chip recruit who transferred from the University of Florida.

As the aforementioned run-in with the law attests, he needs to keep himself focused off the field to be productive on it, but his talent is unquestioned."

Huh? Time to bring up the off field incidents again. Injecting your opinion in there. Nice. What he needs to do to be successful is have some holes to run through and hit them. When he talks about Siegert later in the article he doesn't bring up anything about the sheep incident again. Or how he needs to keep his mind off of gay sheep to be successful in the field.

On recievers:

"Haas isn't a burner, but he creates separation and catches everything in sight. In 2004, Haas broke OSU single-season school records with 86 receptions and 1,379 receiving yards."

This also seems sneakily like he's trying to put down Hass in some way. Let the numbers speak for themselves! Being a "burner" isn't all there is to being a WR.

His prediction:

"I believe the Beavers will end up with a best case record of 8-3, with a more likely 6-5 or 5-6 season on the horizon."

Well, at least he didn't pick us 7th in the Pac-10.