How Good will the Beavers be at the End of the Season?

Bye week, time to regroup and review.

After a win like that, everybody is excited in Beaver Nation. Maybe too excited. When you see Rose Bowl possibilities being thrown around on the forums, we may getting a bit ahead of ourselves.

So where are we? Well, we're where we would have been if we held serve at home up to this point. That means we still need to win out at home (UW and Stanford) which is very reasonable. Also, we need to steal one on the road (UO, USC, and WSU). Our best bet is clearly WSU there. So, yea, we should be excited because we're back in the bowl hunt. Plus, USC isn't looking so scary these days so who knows!?!

The only way we turn the corner and become an 8-4 team is if the offense and especially Sean Canfield has turned the corner. Why do I think he has turned the corner? Let's review a post from a few months ago before the Idaho St. game.

The QB situation - Saturday, September 15, 2007

Both Matt and Derek had no experience with Riley's offense. Each had prior game experience under different systems with mixed results. But both had a ton of interceptions in their first year under Riley's system.

(Cmp-Att-Int)
Moore.... 211-355-19, 11 td, 271 ypg, 123.11 effic
Derek.... 261-510-24, 24 td, 312 ypg, 124.13 effic

By their Senior years both Matt and Derek "broke out". They looked confident, controlled, and much less mistake-proned. But they were both learning on the job in their Junior years and didn't really know Riley's offense completely.

Canfield is also learning on the job. But he played in 10 games last season and went 28-45 with 2 tds, 2 ints, and 335 yards passing. That's basically a game an a half. Add that to his two half games this year and he's about 3-4 games in to his learning year. So at worst he will start to come around in game 7 or 8 and become a good QB.

However, I have this sneaking suspicion that he will come around sooner if given playing time. Mainly because he doesn't really have to learn on the job. He knows the offense in and out. Now he's just getting the game speed down and learning how to read defenses. Tough, yes, but not as tough as doing both at the same time. So I predict (and hope) that he will be a solid QB around the Arizona or UCLA game. That means less mistakes and basically not costing us the game. By the end of the season he could be really contributing a lot. Especially if teams are still stacking up on the run. I really hope Sean starts it in a big way against ISU today.

I think that this is EXACTLY what is happening. He's nearly a season into his career at this point. Plus, he knows the offense well because he's grown up in the system. He may not be John Elway the rest of the way, but I think he has less giveaways and will manage the game better from here on out. He will do that and our D will keep us close in every game. That means we should have a chance to win every game from here on out.

Do I expect we will win out? No. But I feel much better about going down to Eugene and LA now. And after a great game like last week, Beaver Nation deserves to get excited and dream big. What a great week for a bye week, huh?

Go Beavs!