Beavers Lose To Stanford, And Take a Gut Punch

That game was a tough loss for the Beavers. And it was tough for Beavers fans like me who just want a season where we start off strong for once. Bob DeCarolis wonders where the fans are at the games, but it tough to build excitement when you're written off after the first 5 games. It still could turn out to be a good start. Maybe this loss will inspire the guys to beat PSU. Maybe lightning will strike twice and USC will go down again (they have had their share of bad early Pac-10 losses).

As far as the Stanford game, that was an emotionally tough game for us fans. The game went something like this:

* Yes! The season has started!
* OK, starting slow, but we're OK so far.
* Nice 2 minute drive to tie it up at halftime! We've got this game now!
* Got the lead! But it feels a little hollow because we settled for a FG.
* Crap! Can anyone stop that guy? He's running over us!
* How can Stanford be opening up those huge holes?
* Uh, oh. It's Cincy, Boise St., and Louisville all over again. Ug.
* Wait a sec, we have a shot to win this thing...
* Hey, we're gonna tie this game!
* What happened! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! (Cries in beer)

It's games like these that make me think were not going to win another game. But after I slept on it, there are some positives.

The positives:

* Our 2 minute offense is really good.
* Lyle is not perfect, but he's actually a pretty good QB.
* Our running game could be pretty good at some point this season. I saw flashes
* Our O-line is OK. At least in pass protection. Lyle had a lot of time to throw.

The negatives:

* This isn't last year's defense yet.
* Turnovers and mistakes are the key to every game for the Beavers here on out
* RBs catching passes out of the backfield is sketchy


One question I had is, where was the Fly Sweep? Our bread and butter last year and we don't run it first play of the game? We need to make teams prove they can stop it.

Oh, and that #44 on Stanford should have been ejected. I have never seen a cheaper shot on the QB than that helmet to helmet job after a handoff. That guy goes to Stanford?! Harbaugh didn't even take him out of the game. Weak.

ESPN sure loved Stanford/Harbaugh. Does the S in ESPN stand for Stanford?


Penn St. next.

Stanford Is a Must Win Game

Yes, we already have our first must win game. And its the first game of the season. Yikes!

Most Beaver fans have a fairly optimistic view going into this season. Good seasons are built on beating teams you expect to beat, pulling out a few good wins, and probably losing to most everyone better than you. Great seasons have a win or two over a great team.

Here's how I see the Beavers opponents stacking up:

Must Wins
@Stanford
Hawaii
Washington St.
@Washington
@Arizona

Good Wins
@Utah
Arizona St.
@UCLA
Cal

Great Wins
Penn St.
USC
Oregon


Must wins are the teams that every Beaver fan says "W" automatically in the pocket schedule game.

Good wins are ones where you think, hmm, this could be a tough win or a loss. Win a couple of those, and you're in a bowl game.

Great wins are the USC win in 2006. It's last year at Cal and Oregon. These are the ones people remember and turn good seasons into great ones.


Back to Stanford. We must win this game. It allows the guys to go into Penn St. fired up, relaxed, and ready to prove who they are. It takes the pressure off if we don't come away with a win at Penn St. And most importantly, its a Pac-10 road win.

I want this season to be a great season. And the way to make that happen is to be 3-0 to start the season. It all starts today.

Go Beavs!

Craig Robinson on the national stage

Check out that sweet orange tie!

2008 Football - Pocket Schedule Game

Its time to start the old pocket schedule game. I ran a poll a few weeks back before fall camp had started and I found that people are very optimistic about this season. Of course, its easy to pick a number. Harder is predicting how the Beavers get there.

Here's a review what Beavers fans think the football team will do this year:

Wins - % of Votes
  11 - 10%
  10 - 15%
   9 - 32%
   8 - 27%
   7 - 7%
   6 - 2%
   5 - <1%
   4 - 2%
   3 - 5%

About 10% think we will have a losing season. However, 25% of fans think we're headed for a BCS game. I voted 9 wins. So yea, either we have a serious case of Orange Crush or we know a lot more than the pundits. Other than Sports Illustrated, it seems we are averaging about a 6th place finish in the Pac-10 among pre-season magazines/polls. Of course, we are always low in those just like we are always low in the recruiting rankings.

Lets look at the schedule:

2008 Schedule - OSUBeavers.com

at Stanford
at Penn st
Hawaii
USC
at Utah
WSU
at UW
ASU
at UCLA
Cal
at UA
UO

At first glance, its clearly very tough. I wish the Stanford game was at home, because that's a tough one to start with. We cannot look past them towards PSU. That said, I'm calling the game at Stanford a win. We have to have that one to get off on the right foot.

W - at Stanford

Penn State is tough. I think we have a shot, but we haven't actually won a huge game out of conference early in the season. Will this be the year we finally start off strong? This could be our Michigan. It would be HUGE! That said, even though I think we can win, I'm putting this down as an L.

L - at Penn st

Hawaii has a new coach and lost some good seniors. W.

W - Hawaii

USC should have Sanchez back. I'm not sure I believe in Sanchez, but the rest of their team is so good. If we are going to beat them, this might be the year. But I have to be realistic and call an L here. But how huge would this game be if we're 3-0 going into it? Reser would be ROCKIN! If god is a Beaver fan, he will make this happen.

L - USC

At Utah. Tough call here. Typically this is when we start hitting cruise control on the season. But playing at Utah will be tough. Revenge factor. Hmmm. I say we pull it out and our defense wins it for us. W.

W - at Utah

WSU: new coach. W.

W - WSU

Washington will be tougher this year. But I think our D just knows how to play against the run. We will be swarming and the Beavs will win in Seattle once again.

W - at UW

Big game with ASU. Erickson returns again. They have a target on their back. We tend to play poorly vs. ASU, but I call a win. This will be our first in a few years and will set up a great stretch run.

W - ASU

Yea. We ALWAYS seem to lose bad at UCLA. So this will be a loss, but it will inspire us down the stretch for our traditional final run.

L - at UCLA

And during that run we will beat Cal again, Arizona away, and the Ducks for a 3rd consecutive time and on to a bowl game!

W - Cal
W - at UA
W - UO


To recap, here's the predictions:

W - at Stan
L - at Penn st
W - Hawaii
L - USC
W - at Utah
W - WSU
W - at UW
W - ASU
L - at UCLA
W - Cal
W - at UA
W - UO

9-3, 7-2 Pac-10

Holiday Bowl anyone?


Go Beavs!

First Fall Practice...Punting, Shotgun, Quizz, Canfield and more!

I finally got out to see my first fall practice on Monday at Reser Stadium. It was a pretty laid back practice with a bonus of lots of special teams work.

Some notes:

Special Teams

There were three punters practicing and only two were really any good. #7 Hekker had some very good punts. And generally he was kicking them fairly consistently. Some didn't have a ton of hang time which could hurt, but enough did that I think we may be better off in the punting dept. this year. #18 Sehnem looked pretty good too, but his best punts just weren't as good as Hekker that day.

The punt blocking looked pretty good and Sammie was as quick as ever returning those punts. The punt rush seemed good as well, but they never got a block so it was hard to tell.

I think Kahut was kicking again, but it was pretty limited. Overall they did well, but they didn't practice anything very long (maybe 30-35 yards).

Offense

Moevao took most of the snaps on the live drills. They are clearly really concentrating on getting him ready for Stanford. He looked pretty good overall, but they may have been implementing some new plays because he was forcing the ball a lot on certain routes that seemed to be covered well (to me at least). But the few times someone was wide open, he seemed to hit them. So that's good. They worked on shotgun, which I don't remember seeing in the past. That should give our O Line some extra time on key passing downs.

Canfield did all of the drills that the other QBs did. He didn't get many reps and he threw nearly all short balls, but he never seemed in pain. Engstrom got a few reps too, but I don't remember anything spectacular. Katz had a good arm, but I saw almost nothing of him in the live drills.

The running backs all looked good. Quizz just looks so fast. Probably because he is fast. And strong. He will make an impact this year. I liked how McCants looked as well. Fast and strong. Francis looked OK, but I don't remember seeing him do much.

The WR and TEs looked good. Nothing spectacular, but everyone looked pretty sharp.

Defense

It was pretty non-contact so it was hard to evaluate the front 7. They definitely would have had a few sacks if they could have. The secondary looked really good. almost stifling at times. They and the LBs definitely swarmed to the ball very well on anything underneath. If our pass rush can be close to last year, teams will have a tough time against us. I didn't really get much of a sense for the rush defense because there were almost zero inside run plays, but the couple I saw looked like they had it stuffed.


Overall, I came away a little happier about the punting situation, the secondary, and maybe the running backs. Everything else was either hard to judge or I expected better.


Go Beavs!

Joe Beaver Show Back On The Air...and is Podcasting

I caught part of the first Joe Beaver Show of the 08-09 season today. And it sounds like they finally added something I've been asking about for the last 2-3 years. They have a podcast!

They mentioned it on the air and I found the link at kejoam.com. Copy and paste this (http://www.hypothetical.net/beaver/pod.xml) into iTunes in the Advanced menu, then "Subscribe to Podcast...".

Its like TiVo for radio. Pretty cool!

2008 Football is Underway

Beavers Fall Camp has started and things look promising. So far mostly good news has come to the camp with Simi Kuli probably here on Sept 1st.

Get out there and watch the 2008 Beavs if you get a chance!

2008 Fall Camp Schedule (subject to change)

Aug. 1-2 2 p.m. (shorts)
Aug. 3-4 2 p.m. (shells)
Aug. 5 2 p.m. (full gear)
Aug. 6 8:30 a.m. (full gear) & 6:30 p.m. (shells)
Aug. 7 2 p.m. (full gear)
Aug. 8 8:30 a.m. (full gear) & 6:30 p.m. (shells)
Aug. 9 2 p.m. (full gear/officials)
Aug. 10 No practice
Aug. 11 8:30 a.m. (full gear) & 6:30 p.m. (shells)
Aug. 12 2 p.m. (full gear)
Aug. 13 8:30 a.m. (full gear) & 6:30 p.m. (shells)
Aug. 14 2 p.m. (full gear)
Aug. 15 8:30 a.m. (full gear) & 6:30 p.m. (shells)
Aug. 16 2 p.m (full gear/officials)
Aug. 17 No practice
Aug. 18 2 p.m. (full gear)
Aug. 19 2 p.m. (full gear)
Aug. 20 2 p.m. (full gear)
Aug. 21 2 p.m. (full gear)
Aug. 22 2 p.m. (full gear)
Aug. 23 1:30 p.m. (full)
Aug. 24 No practice
Aug. 25 6:30 p.m. (shells)
Aug. 26 6:30 p.m. (shells)

2007 Football Season in Review

Fall camp is coming up, and I'll be doing the pocket schedule game for the 2008 season soon. However, I thought I'd do a quick review of the 2007 season:



'Nuff said :)

Poll: How many do the Beavs win next year?

With no CWS to watch and football season a bit away...its time for a poll!

Beavers don't make the tournament...I blame the new compressed schedule

That's a major bummer. It looked like we'd squeak in again. I can't wait until Oregon gets back into the league so maybe the Pac-10 can start getting 6 teams in. The SEC got 9 of 12 teams in. Seriously? Plus, they only had 2 national seeds which the Pac-10 also had.

Honestly, I think that the new schedule cost us a trip. By requiring the season to start so late teams like the Beavers had to play a ton of games on the road to get in over 50 games. For teams in the SEC and California thats easy. But we had to play all over to get it in. How does ASU play 2-3 times more home games than us in a compressed season? That's a HUGE advantage.

Quite honestly, I think the late schedule start date was a hindrance rather than a help to us northern schools. That rule must be repealed. The kids are basically pros playing 5 games a week. When are they going to class? Ugh. I can see why Pat Casey is tired. Lots of travel and lots of games back-to-back-to-back.

Well, lets start a new run next season! Thanks for another fun season Beavs!

Ouch. Baseball Team Takes a Major Blow

The Beavers may have just done what they couldn't afford to do against USC.  They got swept.  They had every opportunity to win the game, but it seems their close game luck has run out.  And to think a hit batter on a curveball would let in the tying run.  That's the breaks I guess. 

I was pretty surprised by the decision to start Peavey.  I think you stick with Robles.  But the coaches went for a hunch and it almost paid off.  His line was pretty good.  Too bad the bullpen couldn't pick him up.  I'm also surprised that they went with Keitzman in a game that meant so much. 

Now even if they win out, they may not be able to ride the National Champion card to get a berth in the playoffs.  Seems like the National Champs should get an automatic berth, right?

Well, one last shot to beat a decent team today.  Long Beach State tonight.

Will the Beavers Baseball Team Make the Tournament?

It's been a bit of a frustrating year this year in baseball. Maybe not quite as much so as last year (before the playoff run) but frustrating nonetheless. Its the up and down nature of the thing. Playing well against great teams and bad against bad teams. Losing series to Wazzu and Gonzaga was not good.

All that said, even losing the two games to USC, we're still in it. What do we need to do to get in?

Here's the remaining schedule:

USC
Long Beach State
Pacific
Pacific
Pacific

I'd say we need to win the last game at USC to finish .500 in the Pac-10. Then if we can beat Pacific 2 out of 3 at home, we're probably safe. Although a sweep would be nice, because they don't look all that good. A win against LB State would look very good as well.

I think the NCAA wants the defending champs to make it into the playoffs so if we just do OK down the stretch, we'll probably make it in.


Why has this year been so tough? Clearly, its the pitching and defense. We've never been a much better hitting team than we are this year, but our pitching and defense was a lot better the last 3 years. This year is particularly bad.

Stutes - He's never really been dominating in his career, but he has been OK this season. Very up and down but at least keeps things close most outings.

His 5.56 era is a little misleading. A 1.49 WHIP ((BB+H)/IP) is not great, but good enough to win you some games. 8.2 K/9 is pretty good and helps get out of some jams. A 63% LOB% seems low but since our team rate is around 60% maybe our defense just doesn't have great range. The 4.4 BB/9 is pretty high for me, but this is college. Our team BB/9 is 4.8 and opponents are walking 5.0 per game. Wow. If Stutes gets hot at the end of the year, then he can be an ace. Otherwise, he's a 2 not an ace.

Reyes - Not a good year. 1.68 Whip is very high. 4.6 BB9. Almost a .300 batting average against. Yikes. If he was a rookie, he would not be pitching every week. He was expected to be our ace. Is his stuff still good? I don't know. But he needs to improve next year or he may be out of a job. One indicator that he's kinda getting unlucky is that his LOB% is 48%. Thats the lowest on the team. Maybe the D hasn't been great or he can't pitch with people on base, but when over 1/2 the people who get on base score, thats not good.

Robles - Our best starter all year if you look at his season stats. His ERA is high, but most other numbers show he's been a solid #2. 1.175 WHIP. 7.3 K/9 (anything over 6 is good enough). .181 average against and .226 batting average on balls in play. Another stat, fielding independent pitching is a low 2.89 (Stutes is 5.14, Jorge 7.05, and Peavey 10.16). And he hasn't allowed a HR all year. So that huge 5.61 era is very misleading. His LOB% is a little low too so that proves that his ERA is a bit of a fluke. If he's not hurt he needs to be pitching every weekend.

Peavey and Osich have started this year too, but they are struggling mightily. Peavey would be fine if he could up his K rate a little and get that hit rate below 1 per inning. He gets hit hard when he gets hit (8 HR and 15 2b in 38 IP - thats the same as Stutes in 1/2 the innings). Osich just walks way too many. 9.3 BB/9. Over one per inning. Plus people are hitting .307 off of him.

I say give James Nygren a shot against the big boys. His numbers look pretty good. Only 3.1 BB/9 - best on the team among pitchers who play regularly. K's are a little low at 5.9 K/9 but he has a 63% LOB% and 1.250 whip. Both very good for our team. He's pitched mostly against lesser teams, but given his numbers he deserves a shot to prove himself.


Just a quick note on hitting. Two things surprised me when I looked at the hitting numbers. First, Lonnie Lechelt is having a great year. He's the second best hitting on the team next to Ryan Ortiz. If he could ever talk a walk, he'd be very good.

Second, Joey Wong is not as good of a hitter as I thought. Even with his 5 HRs a .705 OPS (OBA+SLG) is basically a weak hitting SS. He does make up for it by walking a lot and what appears to be clutch hitting. But, I was surprised because my impression was that he was having a pretty good year.

The only criticism I'd have for the lineup recently is that Jordan Lennerton isn't playing more often. He's a good hitter who has pop and is the best defensive 1B on the team. I realize Ortiz needs rest from time to time, but the Moose needs to play!


Here's to beating USC, LB State, and sweeping Pacific!

Go Beavs!

Must read article on Sammy

Great article on Sammy Stroughter's ordeal and how he made it back.

Stroughter's long road back - SI.com

Gotta read that one.


The baseball team got some national exposure as well.

Casey, Oregon State build for the long run on diamond - USAToday

They are predicting another playoff appearance for the Beavs. Good read.

Spring Game aftermath

Looks like the D will be good again in 2008 if the Spring Game is any indication. Even without Simi Kuli and Ben Terry the D Line was tearing it up much of the game. Granted, we have had a ton of O-Line injuries, but even so, they looked really good.

The biggest surprise was some of the unknowns. Like Justin Engstrom who may have had the best day as a QB. Also, the big WR out of Eugene looked pretty good. He may not get much PT, but it may bode well for the future. Then there were all the new LBs, CBs, safeties, and everything else that we got our first look at. Good stuff.

Looks like only one of the QB walk-ons will be kept for Fall:

Riley, Beavers to choose from walk-ons

Only one of three walk-on quarterbacks — sophomore Brennan Sim and freshmen Justin Engstrom and Zach Anderson — is likely to be invited to training camp. The 6-5, 205-pound Engstrom was the most impressive in the spring game, completing 10 of 15 passes for 108 yards.

Overall, I'm pretty excited. The D looks as good as ever. The kicking game doesn't look like it will miss a beat. The O should be OK with all the new RB talent coming in. Moevao looks very confident and the TEs looked good.

If the offensive line can come together and the running backs can improve, we should have a great team in '08!

Sweet Visual 2008 Pac-10 College Football Schedule

A Cal blogger must have spent some time on this. Pretty cool:



Its a visual helmet schedule of all the teams in the Pac-10! That should get you ready for the spring game!


Thanks Flickr user bearsnecessity!

The Register-Guard Takes Cheap Shot

Does anyone know what Rob Moseley is talking about?

Avoiding spring breaks: The Register-Guard, Eugene, Ore.:

"And was anybody outside of Benton County surprised to read about late hits by Beaver defenders? The Ducks will try to avoid any of those in a Civil War road game on Nov. 29."

Is that a reference to the Alfalava hit in the Civil War? And Duck fans think that Beavers linger on things forever. Get over it!

How's that Belotti family doing? Oh, and when you've shackled the State of Oregon with the albatross known as your basketball arena, I hope the alumns can bail you out!

Frohnmeyer is retiring. Maybe the Phil and Kilkenny won't get a free pass anymore:

University of Oregon president will retire next year - Seattle P-I

"But faculty members do have concerns over the increasing prominence of athletics under Frohnmayer, Sayre said, especially because a large chunk of the $1 billion raised during his presidency has gone to athletics."

Spring Football - The Defense is still good

This is what every Beaver fan wanted to hear this spring:

Day 6 report (not exactly eyewitness account) - Behind The Beavers Beat

"Riley was hopeful that OSU had the depth, and enough fresh blood, to re-load on defense, where much of the front seven is gone, including all three LBs. ... QB Lyle Moevao told the scribes in attendance, 'it's just a bunch of new faces out there doing the same thing as last year.''"

Excellent.

Welcome Craig Robinson

The Beavers have a new basketball coach. After giving it a couple of days to simmer, I'm in the "wait and see" camp. I think its way too early to say he's in over his head like Tim said, but its also too early to praise this as a great hire. Like Ryan White, I have to say that I'm...interested.

There's a lot to digest with Coach Robinson.

* He's a total unknown on the West coast.
* He did a pretty impressive turn around at Brown. Granted...its Brown.
* He's been very successful outside of basketball in a very competitive business that involves strategy, selling, and long hours.
* He's related to Barack Obama.
* He's bringing in a system that can potentially help level the playing field and talent gap.
* He's a good, thoughful, and intelligent speaker

I think he could be a great hire. He's the type of guy who you want to succeed. He fits in well with Mike Riley, Pat Casey, LaVonda Wagner, and the other OSU coaches.

So, hey, I'll give the guy the benefit of the doubt. I don't buy anyone who says that Billy Grier or Bennett would have been better hires than Craig. I see him as an East Coast version of those guys. And when it got down to some unknown at IUPUI...ugh. Sure, I wanted Eustacy to get an interview but I can understand not compromising as well.

I say good hire for now and let's wait and see how this Princeton-esqe offense comes together.

Here's the NY Times article on coach Robinson: Coach With a Link to Obama Has Hope for Brown’s Future

I looked around for some video on Brown, but there wasn't much.

Here's some from what looks to be a Brown student... Brown University Bears Beastin!

There's more on the related videos area. Nothing spectacular.

Eugene/Corvallis loses another local sports radio show

This is a cliche, but we lost one of the good guys in local sports radio this past week. Steve Tannen, former host of SportsTalk on KPNW, has been cut after 10 years.

It's not like we have a lot of options in the local sports radio market down here in the mid-valley. There's the Joe Beaver Show on 1240 AM, and we can get Portland's KFXX Primetime at night usually (Big Suke and Issac Ropp). After that, it was pretty much Steve Tannen and his Sportstalk. Local radio has really taken a hit lately. The Herd went national, and what happened to the Saturday morning show on KFXX?

It's sad and similar to what's happening across all radio. Radio is becoming more homogenized and national. Music radio is just bad these days. Especially when I can find 100's of podcasts that have much newer and better stuff. I guess I'll have to wait for a good local sports podcast to show up. Anyone?

Steve was a Duck, but he respected the Beavers and would give them props all the time. He had a good balanced show and didn't get caught up trying to shock people or stir up bad blood. I enjoyed listening to him and Nate in the afternoons and I hope he makes it back on air in the near future.

KPNW pulls the plug on Tannen’s ‘Sports Talk’ in favor of Savage - Eugene Register-Guard

“To me, it wasn’t just a show,” Tannen said Wednesday. “I put my heart and soul into that. It was kind of a part of who I am."

SportsTalk silenced from airwaves - fans have loud reaction - KVAL

Former Bio on KPNW:

Steve kind of keeps an eye on the world of sports in order to fake his way through KPNW's SportsTalk. He's on a never ending mission to convince people that it's not logical to be a Duck fan and root for any team from Seattle. He and his wife Kathy are animal nuts with 2 dogs, 3 cats and Kathy runs a dog walking business. They're also lunatic Oregon football fans who have attended every home game in their section 11 seats since the start of the 1995 season. Go Ducks, Yankees and Jets!

Oregon State Beavers Finally Have Respect

Oregon State has been the Rodney Dangerfield of the Pac-10 for quite a while. We don't get no respect.

In football our pre-season ranking nearly always is much lower than our final position. Not to mention that our recruiting classes rank low every year for no good reason other than that we are the Beavers.

Last year after winning a National Title in baseball we were ranked pretty low in the Top 25 all year. Even after a scorching hot start, nobody would give us respect.

In baseball, times have changed my friends. This week we are ranked #22 in the Baseball America Top 25 despite a bad start by our recent standards. We were 5-5 and 0-3 vs. Top 25 teams at the time of the ranking. Hey, I'll take that. I'd say that ranking is respect for what we've done.

That said, I think we will be a good team this year. If the defense can become stellar again and the pitching comes around then we will be great again. That huge 22 run effort was big and if that translates to more hitting, then it could be a really great season. The Beavs are young so we may not know how good this team is until Pac-10 play gets going.

Go Beavs!