Hawaii is Talking the Talk

Looks like June Jones and the U of H are mixing up OSUs over on the islands. Say it with me OREGON STATE not OHIO STATE.

June Jones: Bring on the best - starbulletin.com

At his weekly news conference yesterday, Jones addressed a comment he made after Saturday's victory over Purdue about being able to beat top-ranked and undefeated Ohio State.

[...]

Hawaii (10-2) leads the nation in scoring, total offense and passing offense. UH quarterbacks coach Dan Morrison -- not known for hyperbole -- said the Warriors offense "might be the best ever in college football."

Confidence is not lacking over there. But are they serious? Best offense ever? Beat Ohio State? Come on now. You've clearly lost 2 games this season and Ohio State hasn't lost yet. First they better be thinking about the other OSU. That would be Oregon State. I have a feeling that many Hawaii-based players on Oregon State's roster may think this is as big as the Civil War.




BTW, is this their RB? Wow, Nate Ilaoa is a big dude. He's gonna run over someone in our secondary at least once.



Clearly we're the underdog in this game for good reason. But I don't think we can count out the Beavs yet. If we can slow them down at all, then we have a chance. Plus, I think we will be in the right mindset in this game. There's too many Hawaii guys on the team to let people have a let down. At least that's what I hope will happen.


On a side note, did anyone else feel like the media was focusing on the Ducks a little too much after the Civil War. It's almost like they were surprised the Beavers won. Or maybe the Beavers didn't win, the Ducks lost. B.S. OSU dominated the first half and probably outplayed them in the 3rd quarter. Plus, the Ducks were a poorly blown whistle away from a fumble recovery for a TD which would have eliminated any chance of a comeback by the Ducks. Plus, Matt Moore engineered a great drive to get the game winning FG. Yet, all the talk is about Bullotti and the Ducks. Whatever. Give the Beavs their props. They are the best team in the state this season.

Reser Stadium Phase 2 Construction Starting Soon

Phase 2 of the Raising Reser project is underway. Soon the South end zone will be torn down and then rebuilt into a nice end cap to Reser.

Apparently the Reser web cam will be moved to show the contruction over the winter. Check it out here:

Reser Stadium, OSU Webcams, Oregon State University

A Game for the Ages!

Turkey on Thursday, Duck on Friday.

Great game. Lots of drama. Maybe too much...

The Beaver defense held, but it was close. Just a great, classic Civil War.

Go Beavs!

Oregon Uniforms aren't that bad...

What's so wrong about this?

OK, that's pretty ugly.

More here:

2006 hole photo review

Reser Construction, Phase 2 images

We have our first look at Reser: Phase 2. Thanks to Chris who sent me a link with these images of an artists rendering of what Phase 2 will look like.

I hope that this really keeps the noise in the stadium and makes for a louder gameday experience. And I can't wait for the huge jumbotron. Biggest in the Pac-10!

Click on the images for a larger view.

More Info on Reser II:

New AD Report and a key Measure on the ballot for OSU - September 27, 2006

Phase II Stadium Changes - August 9th, 2006

Best Civil War Ever: 1998

Need something to get excited about?! How about reliving the exctasy of the 1998 Civil War! That was the best in my memory. Excitement, drama, and the good guys won.

Watch it here:



Who will be the Civil War hero this year? I'm calling a Sammy Stroughter punt return for a TD. Sam-my! Sam-my!

I can't wait for Friday!

Two great OSU Civil War games being replayed this week

I love the fact that the Beavers have a good relationship with FSN.  The Ducks get very little regional play from Fox Sports (no review show, no previews, and no classic games) and that's fine by me.  Because that means during Civil War week we get only the best classic Beaver victories in recent memory. 

Set your TiVos or VCRs for these two classic replays.  Heck play them throughout Thanksgiving to get ready for the game.

 

TUESDAY, November 21st
7:30 pm
FSN Classics: "1998: Oregon at Oregon State" From Nov. 21, 1998

This was the game that put Mike Riley in San Diego and led to the first winning season in 28 years.

 

THURSDAY, November 23rd
12:00 pm
FSN Classics: "2000: Oregon at Oregon State" From Nov. 18, 2000

The penultimate game for a season that lead many Beaver fans to believe they could die happy.  The Fiesta Bowl was amazing and it was like a Beaver love fest.  Only the Rose Bowl could top it.

Beat the Ducks! Beat the Ducks!

That was the chant that the fans had for the Beavers football players after the comfortable win in Palo Alto yesterday. The Beavs are bowl eligible, but all that matters is beating the Ducks next week!

Quick Review of the Stanford game:

The Beavs started off playing uninspired and flat. The Trees scored like they were Boise St. and that woke everyone up. The Beavers proceeded to run the ball down Stanford's throat and pressured their QB the rest of the day. Game over, Beavs win 30-7. Nice win.

Now on to the Ducks.

They proceeded to get blown out by Arizona without their best QB in for most of the game. Turns out they didn't need a QB as the UA RB Henry did his best Julian Peterson impression and ran over the Ducks all day. He was so good they didn't need to pass.

IT'S CIVIL WAR WEEK!

The only thing that sucks about having the game on the Friday after Thanksgiving is that I can't stick it to Ducks fans in my family after we win. But after that loss to Arizona, I should have plenty of ammo. I actually found myself watching the end of their game more than our game (with a BIG smile on my face the whole time).

If you need some more ammo, I've dug up the old links to some Duck jokes:

The Duck Hate Page
Duck Jokes: Dan Norz

We're winning!! Civil War Blood Drive





After another wild day in the Pac-10, here's the latest standings:

Team           Conf. W-L    Overall W-L
Southern Cal.     7-1           9-1
California        6-2           8-3
Oregon St.        5-3           7-4
Oregon            4-4           7-4
Arizona           4-4           6-5
UCLA              4-4           6-5
Washington St.    4-5           6-6
Arizona St.       3-5           6-5
Washington        3-6           5-7
Stanford          1-7           1-10

Beat the Ducks and we are in sole possesion of 3rd in the Pac-10! Come on Beavs! BEAT THE DUCKS!

Huge weekend of games

This weekend is probably the best college football watching weekend this year. Which OSU will you watch at 12:30?

The OSU vs. U of M game is huge. If it's anything like last season, it will be a great game. Then you've got the extra story of the Bo Schembechler story. I don't think it's possible to overhype this game. I think Ohio St. will win because of two factors: Troy Smith and being at home. Troy Smith will win the Heisman this weekend with a good performance. However...(not so fast my friends!) I have this nagging feeling in the back of my head that Michigan may play even better now that they have lost Bo. Will they win it for Bo? I have a feeling that they may come out really strong because of that. I wouldn't have given U of M a chance, but now I think they have a chance.

Cal and USC. It's the game we've been waiting for all season in the Pac-10. I'm pulling for USC because I want to be the only team with a win over the Trojans. Other than that, this game is a hard one to call. But I know it will be a good game.

Oregon State vs. Stanford. This should be a win for OSU. After a loss last week there should be no lack of motivation for the Beavs. I can't believe they are televising this game. It must have been scheduled before the season. I just hope the Beavs take care of it early so we can watch the big game (OSU/U of M).

Go Beavs!

Beavers Lose in the Rose Bowl

What a lame game. Total dud. The Beavs played OK defense and OK offense, but they didn't do a couple of the keys to victory. Too many TOs. Not enough pressure on the QB.

What could have been a great season now becomes a fight for a good season.

Is this the bizaro week in the Pac-10 or what?

UCLA game and a season snapshot

I was checking out the Beavers statistics comparing last season to this season and was a bit surprised to find that we're averaging 50 ypg less than we were a year ago. Yet our scoring is up by a point a game. The reasons are probably fairly obvious why that is. First, we are turning the ball over less. Second, we have more pressure on the QB. Third, our defense is better. Fourth, our punt returns are way better.

Here's the comparison (2005: 11 games, 2006: 9 games)

                     2005    2006
Interceptions         23       8  
Fumbles Lost          13      10

Sacks                 22      32
Tackles for Loss      81      78
Pass Defense        298.7   205.2
Run Defense         108.0    95.9
Total Defense       406.7   301.1

Punt Returns TDs       0       3

Well, those numbers are shocking. 100 less ypg allowed? 10 more sacks in two less games? 15 less interceptions? That's a great turnaround.

That's what the Beavers need to continue to do to beat the Bruins. No turnovers, strong defense, and pressure on the QB.

The Bruins will be fighting from the beginning. I think it will be a tough game. But winnable.

Go Beavs!

Beavers Men's Hoops Win First Game

I went to the Oregon State Men's basketball game last night against Portland and I figured I'd respond to Matt's request for some thoughts on the game.

I was a bit surprised by Seth Tarver starting at shooting guard. I thought Wes was the starter, but I glad he got so much playing time. I think Seth is just a bigger guard and gives them more flexibility defensively.

Early on the team relied heavily on Sasa Cuic to score inside. Other than his fitness, he's in good form already. They did a good job getting offensive rebounds and converting on those. Josh Tarver was confident and looked good. He looked to score more than Hurd ever did and is big so he can guard and rebound like Hurd. He did have a few unforced turnovers, but they were mostly when he was trying to make plays.

Midway through the first half they had a nice stretch of steals and layups while applying a half press. Overall the first half wasn't that impressive, but OK.

The second half was much better as the D started to clamp down and they Beavers were stealing and fastbreaking a lot. I think they can do that a bit this year if they really concentrate on dominating on defense. They should matchup well with most teams defensively. Of course UP couldn't throw the ball in the ocean in the second half and the Beavs were rebounding pretty well. So they pulled away and probably could have won by an even bigger margin if they played better in the first half.

Cuic will be the go to guy. He is the #1 option clearly on offense. I think Jeffers could help inside a bit more but Cuic will get 75% of the looks inside. Marcel was almost non-existent in the first half, then got going in the second with fast breaks, offensive rebounds, and a long shot or two. He may be our solid #2 option.

Josh Tarver will be a good supporting scorer IMO. He looks confident and looks for his shot. And he can shoot the three. He won't hit seven 3's in a game anytime soon, but he's got a good shot. He hit a 3 off the dribble that was sweet. Seth looked a little tentative on offense. A non-threat. But he had flashes. He moves and looks like a player so I think as he gets experience, he will become a threat. Looked good defensively and pretty good passing too. He has a high basketball IQ from what I could tell.

The good thing is that the bench looks as good as its been in a long time. Jack McGillis, Wesley Washington, and Angelo Tsakarakis can all provide instant offense. The new freshman, Shaaftenar, was big and moved well. Not a threat offensively, but he played well offensively and seems to know the game well. Oh, I was impressed with the new backup point guard Silvar. He was quick and looks injects energy into the game when he gets in. I think he could will be good. Calvin Hampton didn't get as much PT, but had a great move inside at the end of the game. I think he should play more. I was disappointed Liam didn't get in, but he'll probably play as the weekend goes on. Unfortunately, I won't see any of those games.

Well, that's it. No season predictions yet, but we should be competitve. The burden will be on our young guards to get the ball to the bigs and play off them when they are guarded well. If they improve quickly, it could be a surprisingly good season. I'm hoping for better than last year.

Go Beavs

New rules make cut plays out of games

I don't know if anyone noticed, but games have been considerably shorter this season. I actually don't think that it's such a bad thing. TV games last year dragged on to nearly 4.5 hours last season. This season I don't think we've hit the 3.5 hour mark. The new rules definitely shorten games. The question is, how do they affect games. And more importantly, how do they affect the Beavers?

One site has done a study of games from this year in comparison to last season. Here are the results:

The Losses Continue to Pile Up : The Wizard of Odds

Overall...G........Plays......Plays/G....Min.......Min/G......Time/G 2005......488.....82324.....168.70.....97698*....200.61.....3:20:37 2006......531.....80996.....152.53.....99069.....186.57.....3:06.34 * missing game duration of Toledo-Ball State 10/15/2005
Year......G........Points.....Pts/G
2005......488.....25494.....52.24
2006......531.....25069.....47.21

Year.......G.....1H Pts....1H Pts/G...2H Pts....2H Pts/G...OT
2005......488...12842.....26.32......12315.....25.23.......337
2006......531...12985.....24.45......11755.....22.14.......329

Here are the shortest games from Week 9:
Buffalo-Boston College: 2:25
Arkansas State-Florida Atlantic: 2:26
Wyoming-Texas Christian: 2:39
Minnesota-Ohio State: 2:50
Auburn-Mississippi: 2:50

Here are the longest games from Week 9:
Ohio-Kent State: 3:41
Texas-Texas Tech: 3:35
Washington State-UCLA: 3:34
Florida-Georgia: 3:33
Michigan State-Indiana: 3:32

So we're losing an average of 16 plays per game and about 5 points per game. That may not seem like a lot, but it could be huge. The Beavers season could have been affected in two ways.

First, if USC had 16 more plays to score again the Beavers may not have held on for the upset. Who knows how many plays would have been added, but we clearly were helped a little by the new rules.

Second, would the WSU game have gone any different? We may have kicked a FG on 4th down in the game ending drive because we knew that if we held on defense we probably would have got the ball back.

Other than that, it probably hasn't affected OSU much. Clearly the rules change the game. But the real question is: are the changes for the better? I submit yes. I think the games we getting too long and I like the 3.5 hour games. Plus, I like the fact that there will probably be more upsets in a season because the big teams won't have as much time to mount a comeback. Plus, I think the truly good teams will be the best teams because they can't rely on crazy comebacks like UCLA did last season.

What do you think?

The "incident"...or Coker-gate

One of the big stories coming out of the win last Saturday was how ASU walked through the Beavers pre-game field goal practice which led to a confrontation with the big man, Curtis Coker. Coker said that Carpenter had popped off to him, which prompted a response and got him and other teammates fired up for the game. Here's the quote:

“Why would I let them do that in my house?” Coker said. “So I was going to show them how it is, and Rudy Carpenter goes, ‘Oh, No. 98, you’re a bad (dude), aren’t you?’ I said, ‘Oh, yeah? You remember No. 98, because I’m going to tattoo it on your backside!’ ”

In classic Dirk Koetter form, he denies it happening because "he was there".

ASU's Carpenter falsely accused | EastValleyTribune.com

At Reser Stadium, both teams head to and from their locker rooms through the same tunnel. At the same time the Sun Devils headed off, Oregon StateÂ’s band was on the sideline, preventing ASU from leaving the field via that route.

Sun Devils coach Dirk Koetter said his assistant coaches formed a chain, allowing his team to pass between the OSU players and band without making contact.

“There was no altercation,” Koetter said. “The closest person to their team was me. We asked (Oregon State) to look into it, and it was just one of their players popping off about something. . . .

“It didn’t happen. I was there.”

Strangely, we don't hear a word from Rudy Carpenter in that article, or in another incidentbout the incidient out of Arizona. However, coach Riley is denying the incident as well.

Torain, Herring sit out but will play on Saturday | The Arizona Republic

Both teams go onto the field at Reser Stadium in Corvallis, Ore., through the same entrance. ASU players were blocked from going around the Beavers by the Oregon State band, so ASU coaches and staff funneled the Sun Devils onto the field between them and the band.

"In no way did Arizona State disrespect the Oregon State football program," Riley said. "I applaud ASU head coach Dirk Koetter for his courtesy in allowing our team, band and cheerleaders to enter and exit the field."

Of Coker, Riley said: "Our players have no business talking disrespectfully to an opponent before the game."

I agree that OSU has no reason to talk before the game. Isn't that what got us in trouble against BSU? We were trash talking before the game and it got them all pumped up.

Obviously this story isn't that big of a deal, but I think it's funny how much press it's received.

Mike Riley love web site :)

Is this the answer to the negative web sites from earlier in the season? LOL.

Mike Riley you are mighty - Aninote.com

Beavers Stay Steady and Win

I say we make it a university rule that we can only play the Arizona and Southern Cal schools in November. ASU looked like they wanted to go home at about the start of the 4th quarter. They were beaten and miserable. It was POURING.

Enough about them because the story is the Beavs. They are acting and playing like a team on a mission. Not too up, not too down. Just steady. Like coach Riley preached before the USC game. Steady.

Matt Moore was steady and then some. 44 yards rushing! And 282 yards in the air...on a rainy day. Great job Matt. This feels familiar. Senior quarterback was a rough start to senior season. Then a win over UW sparks a great win streak in the middle of the season and the QB looks great the whole way. That was Derek in his senior year. Matt is looking poised, confident, and good.

Our RB situation is starting to look iffy at best. Our two best RBs are now the walking wounded. Ev had a gutsy performance, but he's 75% at best. I don't think he moved laterally once all game. Carrasco did look good at the end of the game. Maybe he can plug in and contribute. I hope Ev and Clinton can heal up quick.

The D was great yet again. I looked up at one point in the 2nd quarter and ASU had 4 yards passing. Wow. Sure they were running pretty well on us, but not well enough to overcome their anemic passing game. Or the 2 interceptions.

On to UCLA after a great win over ASU. Go Beavs!

Reser Stadium and the fans getting some props

I'm actually really concerned about this game on Saturday. ASU always seems to beat us even when we outplay them. Plus, I'm very concerned about a post-big win letdown. I mean, I'm still buzzing about it so it must be tough for the players. I think this game is probably the second most important game of the season so far. Because they can't have a let down like they did after beating Cal last season. They need to take care of business.

Beaver Nation sure came ready last week. Now that we have a bit of a rep, we need to keep it up and make Reser a tough place to play.

Here's some accolades about the stadium, fans, and the noise:

Devils’ Payton to see familiar face vs. Beavers - EastValleyTribune.com

Complicating matters for ASU will be the fact that the upgrades to Reser Stadium have turned it into a pretty tough place to play. Recent renovations added nearly 8,000 seats to the stadium, which now seats 42,300 and will continue to grow in the next few years.

Then-No. 3 USC found out just how loud the venue is when it was upset in Corvallis.

“Now it is a big-time college football atmosphere, and their fans are really into it,” Koetter said. “The crowd is really loud there. I think it bothered USC at times. They had four or five false-start penalties due to crowd noise. In Corvallis, they support the Beavers hard.”

Go Beavs! Focus and Beat ASU!