Oregon State vs. Idaho Preview

If you're like me then you know two things about the Idaho Vandals: they are coached by Dennis Erickson and they gave Michigan St. a scare in the first game of the season. After that nothing. The press sure hasn't given us much but re-hashing the Boise St. and the implications of Dennis coming back to Corvallis.

If you want to think about Dennis then think about the good times (see Brooks Hatch blog) and the come back to the present. Because we need a winning season this season.

On to Idaho.

If they take on the character of other Erickson teams, then there will be a lot of deep passes to take a shot at the OSU secondary. And the defense will probably blitz quite a bit to make up for any athletic shortcomings.

Offense

The offense isn't stellar, but decent. They rush for about 119 ypg and pass for 213 ypg.

Their running back, Soph Jayson Bird, looks fairly average but does have a ton of experience as he's played every game since his freshman season (got a redshirt last year after getting hurt). Looks like they have a few decent backups that provide a good change of pace.

The passing game is led by Senior Steve Wichman who is in his second year of starting at QB. He passed for 2700 yards last season with 15 passing TDs. However, it looks like he is prone to interceptions with 18 last season and 3 this year already (only one passing TD).

Doesn't look too threatening. The only thing they have done better than average is avoid sacks. Only 3 allowed all season. Overall, we had better keep them under wraps. Considering they haven't scored more than 17 points against anyone good yet means we should hold them to less than 17 offensive points. We should pull an E. Washington type performance against this team.

Defense

From what I hear their defensive line is a strength on this defense, but they only have 1 sack so far. They have a fair bit of TFL (tackles for loss). Beyond that, there are not a lot of clues as to what they do well. They give up almost 500 ypg and 36 ppg. Granted they got blown out by WSU, but still that's a lot of yards.

They could cause problems at times, but I fully expect the Beavers to get after it and start showing off the type of offense they did against E. Washington. I'm particularly interested in the passing game. We need to get that rolling again in preparation for Cal.

Overall

Beavs win 41 - 10. But that's not the real story. Everyone will really be watching two things: how do the Beavers respond after the BSU game and how does the team look heading into the Pac-10 schedule. It's really almost like EWU all over again.