Home Basketball California @ Oregon State

California @ Oregon State

213

6:30 on Pac 12 networks.

The Stanford game was a real disappointment. They had an opportunity to build on momentum and instead came out flat. That’s the sign of a team that’s not quite ready for the prime time and doesn’t know how to prepare night in, night out. Maybe some nerves as expectations were raised after the Oregon victory, too, but again that’s a sign of a team not quite ready. Need to get things back on track tonight and then actually carry the momentum for a few games.

Go Beavs.

213 COMMENTS

  1. Momentum is a myth, but I agree otherwise. They’re a young team, so it might take some time to find consistency, unfortunately. We’ll see how they perform against Cal tonight.

      • Incorrect.

        There are many things that can be construed as “momentum.” But there is no such thing as momentum in anything but a physical reality.

        Come up with a better word if you want to jockify science.

        Fucking momentum… give me a fucking break.

      • Agree — the term from physics is, as many such terms are, quite applicable to describing human behavior or affairs. There is indeed “momentum” in sports.

    • Momentum as a concept of effect on game outcome is a myth (e.g. a fumble caused by a defense causes a swing in momentum). However, I believe what Angry is referencing is a concept of psychology which is not a myth. In this case, this is about players who don’t believe in themselves enough to perform under pressure. I think that this issue is institutional (in basketball at least) as they do not have a model of success to give them belief that they can be successful. These players will have to find that internal belief and avoid the doubt that creeps in with success. It is common for a team like ours to immediately doubt their own talents despite their success and even embrace failure as soon as they face adversity. This type of situation will take years to overcome.

        • I don’t know now (suspect not) but I know that has been something that Angry et al. have argued would be a significant asset to all sports teams for several years now.

          If they don’t have one, I wonder if they could leverage a professor at the university. I had a great sports psych professor in undergrad. I can’t recall if she is a licensed psychologist but I bet even recommending that athletes take the course would be beneficial. It would take relatively little insight for someone to realize that the concepts being taught apply to them. Also, when I was a student (last about 5 years ago) student health had up to 5 free visits with a staff psychologist. While they are obviously not sports psych certainly they can still help with issues of insecurity, concentration, and pressure. Seems to me that the university could leverage resources already available to get a benefit at little to no cost. However, I do think a wise use of resources would be to hire a staff psychologist to share among sports teams.

          • Most universities leverage their counseling centers currently, but they’re only scratching the surface of what individuals with backgrounds in sport and performance psychology can provide. OSU has some exercise science individuals, but no programs pertaining to sport psych that they could pull from directly.

            A good place to start would be with the Association of Applied Sport Psychology to see which individuals are certified in the U.S. as capable consultants. It’s the best governing/accrediting body we have right now.

            Most of the time when you just go to a traditional psychologist, even one who says that they have a focus on sport as well, you find that their practice is mostly focused on pathology and disorders. Especially at the university level, because AD’s hope to get the most bang for their buck. Individuals trained solely in the performance realm primarily reside in the M.A. degree range and thus can only tailor their practice (legally) to performance training skills and techniques.

        • No. They’ve contracted with individual consultants for various teams at various times, but never employed someone on staff specifically for that purpose.

          It requires a concerted effort on the part of the AD. Just one sport psychology trainer would have difficulties working with as many athletes as are housed in a D-I program.

          • Yeah there is no way one person could handle everything, but what could happen is one person talks to the team on Sunday, after the game, and explains to them the mental challenges they’ll face in the upcoming week and how to prepare for next week (i.e. based on what happened the prior week). They could do that for each team/sport. But no, they can’t be available for one on one meetings. That is obviously too much to ask of one person.

      • Pretty much. The OSU baseball teams that won championships did so much on momentum (i.e. confidence from continued success that builds and builds). We see this all the time in sports and life. I’ve had it happen to myself with hobbies, such as playing guitar. One practice session builds off another, and momentum swings upward.

        Now does one fumble swing momentum? Sometimes it does. Usually in a game you can look back to one key play that changed the game. But there’s more argument that that’s a myth.

        I guess it depends on what definition of momentum we’re using.

        • I actually agree with Angry for once… He must have some momentum on his side! This is typical of sports, we see it all the.time… In my mind it’s definitely psychological.. You see it a lot in combat sports… You’ll see fights where the two combatants are not separated by much in skill but usually the fighter who has been on the better run performs better. They tend to avoid matching up fighters where one is coming off a loss and one is coming off a win. That way you have two fighters in similar psychological states, makes for a better match.

    • I did my graduate thesis on momentum and synchronicity to earn my sport psychology M.A..

      It is a real thing with various facets, but one concept that’s been linked to ‘momentum swings’ is that of negative facilitation/positive inhibition.

      Basically, when a team gets up enough, they let their foot off the gas to an extent. With the opposing team getting beaten pretty badly, they increase their efforts to their maximum abilities and take advantage of this opportunity which can lead to shifts/swings.

      Of course this all depends on the mental fortitude/confidence that the team has in it’s abilities and can occur on a small scale (play-to-play) or larger scale (game-to-game).

      Just one of the many ways in which mental preparation and resilience techniques can be implemented with teams to mitigate or take advantage of performance opportunities.

        • If only it were that easy…

          People in the sport psych profession still have to ‘sell’ ourselves so greatly on the benefit of mental training skills. One day we’ll be common place like a physical trainer/strength coach/nutritionist, but as for now we all just hope and dream to get back to our alma mater.

      • There is no momentum other than what it is. Psychology cannot just corrupt a word for their own use because dumb TV types use it as a metaphor.

        Think of the use of the word insanity in psychology. Now think of that use with the completely wrong definition attached to it because it has been jockified.

        That’s what momentum is in sports.

    • “”We want him here for a long time. He is a quality person and all the things we look for at Oregon State.” ”

      None of these guys have stayed anywhere a long time. More dos-si-do’in with the state of Utah seems likely…”swing your coaches round and round, I’ll take your coach you take mine!”

      That said, I’m more optimistic about Clune than I was Sitake. Sitake main asset seemed to be that he was likable, not a bad trait, particularly for recruiting. But strategy and implementation? Seemed hit and miss, with as about as many misses as hits.

      • This bit:

        “”Kevin understands what kind of coach I am,” Kauha’aha’a said. “We know each other pretty well. I was fired up to hear Kevin was going to be our guy.

        “He’s a no-nonsense, all-business type of coach. Kevin is not a rah-rah guy during a game. He is tuned into scheming and getting the next play ready.”

        Contrast with Sitake, sideline spaz….which I’m sure the kids love at times, but….

  2. The larger beaver nation, I think. Of course we worship Eichorst and #TPB but I don’t think the magnitude sank in with most.

    Is that true? I don’t really read their opinions anymore, but that seems ignorant if true.

    Though, I guess technically you could make an argument the new coaches will cost OSU more…Riley only made 1 mil. Banker like 550k. The entire staff was probably under 3 mil. The current staff is well over that without any results yet. So, I guess there’s an argument there.

    Obviously not one I agree with, and I think this investment will eventually pay off via better bowl games, crowds, etc. Time will tell. I just know I’d rather pay more for the potential of greater upside than pay little for a known and limited commodity.

  3. Lady Beavs on the front page of the NCAAW section.
    http://espn.go.com/womens-college-basketball/story/_/id/14516489/oregon-state-beavers-jamie-weisner-one-college-basketball-most-efficient-scorers

    I like Rueck’s analogy:

    “We talk about [that] defense is, in some ways, like rock music — and offense is like jazz. It’s nice and smooth. And it should be. You never see a great player that looks like they’re playing hard on offense. It looks so easy. That happened for Jamie a year ago.”

    • It’s decent. The extreme complexities of jazz lends itself to either end. You could go with classical if you wanted.

      The point is that it takes so many details done right to make it look easy. But when it does, it’s like music well played.

      And we would need an entire industry and marketing and TV shows and such to make us accept bad music as the norm.

    • Wow. Zony drops both games in LA. Is it just me or does Sean Miller look like he’s about to have an aneurysm every time the TV pans to him?

      • That’s Miller. His team isn’t full of elite talent like it usually is. The frog is peeling.

        I’m sure that’s a metaphor somewhere. If not… the frog is peeling.

    • I watched that game this morning.

      It wasn’t as good as the overtimes I saw before our game. It certainly wasn’t as good as I’ve seen from Zony this year. Gabe York is not a green light except for perimeter shots.

  4. OT – Cincy chokes in playoffs. Punk Burfict (frormerly of ASU) with personal foul to help the Steelers cause on the final drive.

    Cincy, Cleveland….no wonder OSU gets 106,000 fans…

    • and Adam Pacman Jones. Those two single handedly gave the Steelers 30 yards in penalties allowing the game winning FG

        • No it is not.

          Are you fucking stoned?

          There have been so many low character guys playing sports that it is a cottage industry keeping them in check.

          We call that industry… wait for it… sports.

          Fucking calling character and shit on… who were you calling it on?

          Oh… a pro team.

          Okay.

          You want to talk about a pro team in any terms other than professionalism, you go ahead and do so.

          • Yet another reason I don’t follow pro sports and can sometimes barely stomach the college ones. Character has a very low bar in the NFL. Limbo under it, and you fall apart from suspensions, arrests, media circuses… Then again the Patriots with the deflator and Aaron Hernandez are the counter-example. Hmmm.

          • I’m more concerned about the low character owners (mafia) than the low character players.

            Then there’s the low character people who are running our country……. but that’s for another message board.

        • character guys: you mean Joey Porter, the agent provocateur LINEBACKER coach who is out on the field checking on the condition of a wide receiver, getting in the face of Bengal players; career long big mouth Porter, who has gotten DUI’s, kited checks and walked away from a mortgage–that high character guy?

    • Now they absolutely can’t blame this loss on Andy Dalton. That was pretty pathetic and downright embarrassing. I’d feel bad for Cincy fans if they weren’t such knuckleheads.

  5. That’s why your FT are important! Going 13 out of 14 to finish the game is why we won tonight.
    Still I think they need to have more focus, they should have been up by 15 in the first half, but they kept Cal in the game. A good win with some learning moments.

  6. Good win. Weathered Cal’s runs in the second half. Cal is a good team, likely will be in the top half o the conference. This was the kind of win they needed.

    Tough road trip coming up. I wonder how the travel is going to work out. Do they fly back on Wed night? I assume they’ll fly out there on Tuesday. If they don’t come back, it’s nearly a week on the road. Not great, but neither is the alternative of flying out and back twice in a week.

    • Really? Getting to Boulder is like an hour and a half in the air. College kids can handle that. How many times would we drive two hours to find a party at IU at nine, then turn around and drive home the two hours at four a.m.? Come on, Bill.

    • per Coach Tinkle on the post game presser, the team is flying out Tuesday for the Colorado game on Wendesday, coming back on Thursday and then leaving (I assume here) Saturday for the Sunday game at Utah.

      Thru 2 weekends of conference play (Stanford visits Eugene Sunday night) there is only one undefeated team in conference. Washington. But I have full confidence that Romar will do less with more. Pac-12 is hella deep this year and 11 or 12 wins may be enough to win it. Or more likely a multiple team tie when it’s all said and done. Sit down, get some beers and popcorn, buckle up and enjoy the ride.

  7. The Stanford loss really hurt, because I think it’s going to take at least ten conference wins to get into the dance. We had nine conference home games. Now instead of stealing one road game, we have to find two. Any ideas where the best chances are?

    • Not worried about finding wins.

      But you’re correct. That loss was avoidable even with the refs who said Ni.

      The refs in the Cal game sucked pretty hard too. When they got to us (after the OT) all I saw was a goaltending followed by many steps… all by Wallace. I was watching a couple hours after the game, but I didn’t know the outcome at the time. I was sure we were going to be screwed in the rears like the crew did on Wednesday. And they tried quite hard. But our team overcame all that.

      I think that’s our identity this year… kinda like last year… kinda like next year.

      We’re going to win it all. If you’re not with us, you’re against that.

      or something

  8. Cal game:
    Tinkle almost blew it by shutting down the offense the last few minutes and have Payton dibble until there was nine seconds on the clock. Tinkle Jr saved dads bacon with that fall away, behind the basket shot with the clock expiring. That was an NBA move and shot.
    Prior to the last Cal run, how many shots did we miss and have rim out. Had a chance to twist the dagger, but turned a comfortable win into a nail biter. Great win over a talented team. WT got some good minutes out of Reid, Gomis, and the other big. ST finally played some D and had some key defections. Post D was bad. Too many drives to the basket for easy hoops. Too bad Olaf does not have two mores years of WT coaching him. What did he do that got Tinkle so pissed off?

    FTD…….go BWB’s!

  9. BASEBALL……less than 6 weeks till opening day 2/19 in Arizona. GO BEAVS!

    And this from Aaron Fitt: Something notable at D-I business meeting: Big Five conferences will vote next week to allow HS players to have agents during negotiations.
    About time? Recognizing what is already de-facto? A sign of the times for all sport? An indication that much of society is hung up on instant gratification and parents trying to live out their dreams through their kids? You decide.

    And, what would Wetzler say? (I know, his situation was vs MLB, so not directly relevant).

  10. And, for those who may still doubt that college athletics is big business, there is this from the Washington Post. Like the high salaries at many non-profits, the administration at many public institutions leaves plenty of room for GREED.

    We can quibble with this though: That business, however, depends on unpaid labor.,
    but probably not this: “There’s just this overwhelming force of greed we’re up against,” said Ramogi Huma, president and founder of the National College Players Association. “It’s clear NCAA sports are financially rich but morally bankrupt.”

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/as-college-sports-revenues-spike-coaches-arent-only-ones-cashing-in/2015/12/29/bbdb924e-ae15-11e5-9ab0-884d1cc4b33e_story.html

    • Uhhhh Ramogi Huma: when you have a country whose leaders are morally bankrupt why is it you seem to be surprised/offended that an organization like the NCAA is morally bankrupt too?

    • That works if you think they’re unpaid. Would the author like to give back his degree and the debt attached in order to not write the article he did? I pretty much guarantee he wouldn’t get the chance to write a polemic such as this if the vastly undervalued degree he has wasn’t considered.

      • Good quibble, just what I had in mind.

        Still, I note that SA’s receiving value doesn’t prevent administrators from being greedy and building empires.

  11. I was at the game last night so wasn’t able to listen to the Bill Walton commentary people are discussing. I did however, watch the encore this morning on TV. I thought Bill Walton was great, he’s funny, entertaining, he knows the history of Oregon State basketball and was very complementary of our program and the state of Oregon in general. He smokes weed, so what. I think he is an asset to the Pac 12 Network.

    • Yeah, Walton was good last night. Sometimes he rambles and it can get annoying, but since he was complimenting the Beavs and Oregon I don’t see why anyone would complain.

        • That’s a good point, Walton seems like a really happy guy. He’s like that when he’s not behind the mic too. He was out gladhanding before the game with the big smile on his face, shaking hands and taking pictures with fans. He just seems like a good dude.

          • People just hate his politics so it doesn’t matter what he says he is going to get shitted on. That is just society today, there is no longer room for civil disagreements or having understanding for someone with a differing viewpoint.

          • Ean, what are his politics? Never even heard anything about it, but I don’t follow Bill Walton closely.

            Agree he seems very happy and in a genuine way. Probably because he’s successful at everything he does.

          • Well not really political but being a well known hippy that has seen 100’s of Dead shows is bound to piss off certain conservative folks. Big time against the war on drugs. Has gushed about Obama in the past. Maybe people hate him less for being outspoken and more for being outlandish at times.

          • It’s not his political comments that bother me so much, unless he goes on a tangent for 15min while key moments are happening in the game. The thing that gets annoying to me is when he said off the wall, untrue statements… Last year he called Jordan an average athlete! So it’s hard to like him sometimes.

          • You have to understand his humor. He’s waiting for a, “Yeah… right,” most of the time.

            If you want to break down Jordan as a hoopster, I would rate him as the best player in the worst period of hoops ever. I would also say his prime was not his prime because there was better ball played in his real prime.

            But that’s another discussion.

          • Nobody ever shuts up. It media. Dead air is money lost.

            I happen to find Aikman and Buck the most boring crew to work any game… ever. I used to think it was because of Buck. But I heard for years that he is good, and Aikman is just that bad.

            I’m leaning that way now.

  12. Women’s basketball thoughts:

    Good to see them pour it on in the 2nd half. Quacks get blown out by the BWBs at TTATT yet again :) McWilliams getting in-game experience the silver lining to Wiese’s injury cloud.

    The refs are ridiculous.

    Liz Brenner is huge! Her brother’s got nothing on her, and he’s on the quack football team (thanks for all the Alamo Bowl bad snaps) Rueck is short in size, but big on getting shit done against the quacks.

    This duck “others receiving votes” nonsense should stop now.

    Digging Hamblin’s ‘do with the braids and orange ribbon. Isn’t she also a double engineering major? Favorite player :) Obligatory: Mandy looking good as always. She’s OSU’s Amanda Pflugrad but with coaching ability and better taste in universities.

    • What does the TTATT on the court represent?
      Did ya notice the camera angle didn’t show nearly as many rows of seats as at Gill? Much higher?

      And re: Mandy, I’m sure you didn’t miss the cleavage shot. Good camera work!

      Yeah, Ruth’s orange ribbon is nice, what about the orange bra-strap/stripe like business with Hunter??

      • I’m guessing it’s supposed to represent “MATT” like Matthew Knight, but it really represents trying way too hard and failing at being hip and stylish.

      • As for the orange Hunter business, I think it’s some sort of athletic tape for some physical purpose I don’t understand. You see it on various players sometimes.

        • Yes. There is a stretch tape that can be used as a brace for joints in specific directions. I remember it being introduced by beach volleyball players first. But Cheikh has been wearing same, except his is thick enough that it looks like a full-on shoulder brace. But what it does not do is constrict movement or be uncomfortable because it doesn’t chaff and crease inside the armpit. If you’ve worn a knee brace, you know what I’m talking about, except it’s up under your arm.

      • I have a friend who says that TTATT court is visionary. He says nobody looks at it as they should. We should all be looking at it as if we’re underwater, looking up. What you then see is the picture of a lake or pond with trees surrounding it. They don’t look like Dougs. So I’m assuming it’s over on the other side of the Cascades with the lodgepoles. And Crater Lake is both wrong in scope and pretentious… therefore, also wrong in scope.

        So I’m thinking the genius behind that floor had a dive class that concluded in a dive up at Clear Lake. If he picked up three or more pieces of trash, he’s good in my book.

        But I bet he never envisioned a great big jellyfish in the middle of his vision.
        http://www.goducks.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=500&ATCLID=205025431

        • My interpretation: you took a bunch of shrooms and went for a walk in the woods. Walking through a clearing the shrooms kicked in so you laid down in the middle of the clearing to look up at the sky. The trees looked all cool around the outside of the clearing, and the sun suddenly looked like a giant green toilet bowl. This was super groovy man, so you kept looking at it and tripping the fuck out for a couple hours. When the shrooms wore off you realized you were blind from staring directly at the sun for hours on end.

          /urban legend.

          • That was a let down in the end.

            I think we told the same story up until your tortured character had to be blinded by the wonders of life.

            I’m going to go read some Dostoevsky to cheer myself the fuck up.

          • A band I was in years ago wrote a song based on that urban legend. I think the original version was acid instead of shrooms, at least the one they told in our neighborhood.

            Either way, the moral of the story is that you need to be on hallucinogens to think that floor is cool.

  13. Good to see the women put in a solid second half after being down by one at the half…but the gals are going to have to figure out their turn-over issues, which will haunt them through conference. They must have had 20 this game.

  14. If the beaver women are BWBs, I wonder if the duck men should be DWDs. Or maybe replace the “with” with “are” but then it’s DADs

    • There’s film right there in the article, and it looks like Kelley is a pretty good runner.

      Beavs have QB development problems of their own, so there’s no need to take jabs.
      Moran is an interesting/versatile prospect. I think he can be a serviceable QB but will require an excellent supporting cast and continued hard work. I don’t see him as a natural playmaker/game changer who can win games on his own. I just like having another QB in the system who is actually a viable option (i.e. Moran is a much better QB prospect than Collins). They should try to get another QB this class, even if it’s a greyshirt or walk on.

      • Considering Struck is getting an in home visit and an official visit, you’d think he’s likely to fill that greyshirt/walkon role

      • Not only did Nemec provide film right there in the article, he also said this in the early comments, ” Kelley is a pass-first dual-threat QB. Many believe he should be listed as a dual-threat. Same style, emphasis on the arm vs. legs.
        I doubt Kelley is gonna turn hole into a pro set outfit!

        • Watching Oregon under Helfrich I think the biggest change is the greater emphasis on passing. The passing schemes are at least moderately complex. Kelly was run first with high school level passing schemes. So getting a QB that reflects that change makes sense.

      • It doesn’t matter as a QB1 problem anymore.

        SC will make QB2 look like dreamland. And QB1 will be the managerial type. I can see an NFL pipeline with so many different kinds of players molding themselves into every man. And I see it on the D side too. Soon everyone will be a Khalil Mack or JJ Watt. That is the future of football.

        And it’s still less active than golf.

  15. Man, pop and rock music losing some big icons lately. David Bowie passed tonight. Wasnt a huge fan but definitely an influential musician

        • Interstate Love Song. Great tune. STP’s first two albums were great front to back. I heard the 3rd and was like, this kind of sucks. I didn’t listen to much of them after that. Saw them in the summer of ’93 at the Salem Armory with the butthole surfers than again in ’95 at civic auditorium in Portland. STP was great both times.

          • I went to a few shows at the Armory too, back in the day. Do they still have concerts there?

            Trying to think of who I saw. The most memorable was White Zombie/Melvins/BabesInToyland in ’95. Memorable because I was a skinny highschool kid and that was my first real concert. Nearly got my ass handed to me by some giant Aryan nation looking guys doing the mosh pitting. Quickly learned that wasn’t the place for me to be hanging out.

          • Honestly I couldn’t tell you as that was the only concert I ever attended at the Salem Armory. I was 18 and one of the 4 of us that went came out of the mosh pit missing his shirt and his face bloodied. He seemed to be enjoying it. I decided I wasn’t going to join him.

    • Lemmy had one good song, Bowie had like 15, and neither had written a good one in like 30 years. People just like saying “Bowie” and “Lemmy”.

      • Have you listened to Bowie’s later stuff?

        Hell, he had one drop on Friday, and I still haven’t been able to sit down and listen to it. I was listening to the real jazz station yesterday because Marcus Miller was hosting a theme of collaborations. And he played one tune by Bowie that is really really good. Then he mentioned that he’d never seen Bowie live, but his friends have all told him that it’s a bucket list item… and he should get out and do it when he got the chance.

        • He seems like a better performer than songwriter, so seeing him live might make someone hooked, but to me he had like 10-15 good songs. I listened to every album in my youth, and some were painful to get through.

          These things are all subjective. He just wasn’t overly musical to my ears…a lot of weird modal type chord changes that got in the way of the more driving or catchy parts of tunes.

          • He obviously sounds like he comes from a classical background. I think we kinda touched on this a couple years ago about Queen. They were also of this vein… and incorrectly lumped in with Proggers by those who just don’t listen well. But while Queen remained loyal to mostly Romantic and Baroque, Bowie managed to fuse so many different sounds so wonderfully and continue to change while he aged.

            Hunky Dory is probably his most pleasing to the ear of the layman. I love Alladin Sane for just straight up rock. But his best is probably Station to Station. That’s just a heavy album, front and back.

            All those changes aren’t haphazard. And he is so so good at making it clean. Remember he pretty much produced everything he did.

          • Yeah I never read up on Bowie’s background, but those early Deram era records do not sound classical to me. Something like London Boys maybe…sounds Baroque. But overall not really. Then all the sudden he shifted out of that weird Celtic/folk style and began the glam stuff, which does sound more classically influenced. So I’m not sure what happened. He transformed a lot, so I don’t know if that was his background or he just made a conscious effort to transform and add those elements.

            I don’t think the chord changes are haphazard. Never said that. They’re all explainable, theory-wise, but to me they get in the way. A song can be chugging along with something catchy and pleasing, and he’ll pull a chord out of some mode that stops it dead in its tracks, or at least gets in the way of the harmonic flow. I mean, cool, if theory is your thing. I like theory and understand it well, but I’d only look back on a song in retrospect to analyze it with theory. Bowie at times feels, to me, like he was writing using music theory…not always making decisions that were best for the songs but rather just trying to be overly clever, theory-wise. It’s why a lot of his songs start out with interesting ideas and then sputter, imo.

          • I agree to a point. He did so much that some was throwaway in a relative sense. But when he was on, he melded theory with musicianship very well. He wasn’t in it to give you a melody. He was in it to tell you a story. And if you didn’t pay attention, you didn’t hear the story.

            He’s a bear to follow. But when you get it, you get what he was doing with just about every note. He leaves a great great catalog that likely won’t be matched for some time.

  16. I was thinking… Do we have to root against Sitake? My college sports hate capacity is already overloaded with Riley and the quackers. I just don’t know if I have it in me, even though I should.

    • No, he didn’t do anything to OSU, except get overpaid for a year. As Angry and others have noted about the difference in compensation with the new DC, this could be a good thing for OSU.

      There are good reasons to root against BYU. And I’ve become convinced that attention to detail and motivating the players to execute on those details are the keys to successful college football coaching. I don’t see either in Sitake.

    • I’ll never think of Sitake again, most likely. Unless he completely tanks. But he wasn’t at OSU long enough to hate and the D did lack talent. Time will tell if Sitake is good, but I don’t think he is. What I’d like to know is why he’s so highly regarded since he’s been mostly mediocre. I think people just like saying “Sitake”…

      • He’s an introvert and a football nerd. He’s easy-going personally. And he’s matter-of-fact as a coach. When he’s wrong, he’s just wrong and admits it. There is no question of motive with him other than just wanting to win.

        I forgive him his uncomfortable interview history.

        I wish him well and thank him for helping to start a rebuild that is more massive than I first thought. I’ll probably never see or care what his team does other than recruiting… or if we play them.

  17. So, Danny Moran still has Baldwin as “inside receivers” coach; and “as of Monday morning Oregon State is awaiting degree confirmation for Corey Hall from the NCAA Clearinghouse”

    Waiting for degree confirmation?? Apparently, serving as a graduate assistant doesn’t require a degree? And Weber State lets one coach also without a degree?

    Bureaucracies, gotta love ’em!
    http://www.oregonlive.com/beavers/index.ssf/2016/01/gary_andersen_and_kevin_clune.html#incart_river_index

    • Hiring a GA only requires transcript exchanges. We’re now talking about someone who will be compensated like an executive from a public institution. You want this kind of bureaucracy for this situation.

      IIRC, his coaching history involved getting a degree from somewhere other than Fresno. And I think he was a GA at Fresno (?) before he actually got his bachelor. I’d have to look again, but it did seem odd at the time I looked.

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