One thing Mamma Machado had right is that the eve of Fall practice feels like Christmas eve (so does the night before kickoff), and that spring practice is meh. Agree completely with her on that, at least now with Andersen at the helm.
I think the most interesting thing to witness this Fall is the change in mindset. The quote from Larry Scott yesterday was just another in a long series that basically confirms Riley was soft and holding guys back. It’s as close to fact as possible at this point. When people analyze the 2015 team, are they taking into account players were mentally and physically weak, their “inner beast” could not be unleashed? Because to me that sounds like a team that’s about to explode. Everyone is underrating this group. Fans of this site say the cupboard is bare and there’s no talent. That’s ridiculous. There is talent up and down the roster. The OL will be sneaky great; the WRs could be the best group in the Pac-12. QB is skewing everyone’s opinion, but with GA open to mixing and matching QBs, and the fact they don’t have to do much in the passing game given this group of WRs, I’m just not that worried about it. The QB situation is overstated too. I reiterate, 5 wins minimum with focused and intense football, which will make the losses bearable.
The downside, as always, is we’re all a year older and balder.
Yay!!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rD2Ke9-N8s
Really? The first post a giant youtube meme?
I didn’t want to gif the Sierra Madre old man dance.
Besides, maybe some of the “down in front” crowd can take a hint?
I started shaving my head years ago, so I can’t get much balder. Until our annual bowhunting trip where I grow it out enough to shave in a rally hawk.
Agree on the excitement this year…love the reports and quotes like Scott’s above. Validates what the objective Beaver fan has been saying for years – lack of intensity, focus, etc. You play how you practice. Don’t finish tackles in practice/don’t finish them in a game…especially early on in the season. So hard as an athlete to flip that switch by will. Pads goes on, beast comes out. Learned behavior.
concur, Angry. I think we’re going to see a “Lombardi” effect with Andersen. Vince turned what appeared to be a sad sack squad into a dynasty by making the bunch he inherited into perennial champions; many players going to the Hall of Fame. I’m not predicting that Corvallis is the new “Title Town” but a squad Riley would have been lucky to win 3-4 games with, Anderson will reach 6-8.
Question for those who have seen Dwayne Williams play more than the spring game:
Will he play four years? And if he does will it only be due to height?
He is a pretty short guy I think like 5-foot-9. I was at fall camp last year and he was a guy who continuously was making plays on the ball, he has a little ball-hawk in him.
Mizell brings up LB depth first:
http://ht.ly/32mE6D
Is depth so shallow that newcomers like Liuchan and Willis will get time out of the gate? I think it was 2 who said on the other thread that Ortiz was moved to LB? I like that move because I like Ortiz and his seemingly flat learning curve… and his size and effort. But does that mean anything in terms of depth? Or is Ortiz being recognized as the solid player we think he is and being placed where he can have more of an impact on the outcome of the game?
is Ortiz being recognized as the solid player we think he is
Who thinks he’s a solid player?
I thought he looked very awkward at FB.
But he executed well and with effort and strength. He’s not a prototypical athlete. But he is fast enough and big enough to play LB in a 3-4. And he executes, which means he takes direction very well.
But to continue that thought, how much does it say that Nall is that good, not as awkward in a sense… that he also executes well and with effort but also has better size, speed and agility?
Nall could be great. I’d rather see him at LB than TE, but he’ll be great at either. Maybe with the injuries they even need to consider him at RB.
Ortiz can be a sub for a few plays here and there, but if he’s more than that they’re in trouble.
We’ll have to see him play first. If we don’t, then we have one answer.
Was that just a “what if” question? It looks like Ortiz is with the TE/HB group.
RUMOR:
Apparently Tim Cook is done for the season, some kind of leg injury (possibly knee)
Well that’s just a neat deal.
And Brown isn’t going to be ready per Machado, so RB is a problem. Paul Lucas could get a look.
Any real news on this yet?
Machado said it’s true.
Confirmed by Gina via Twitter, minutes ago. Out for season, undisclosed injury.
But, Brown “should be ready for the opener”.
Luck O da Beavs is out early and often.
Baro sports editor testing out periscope during media day (should be going on right now); Angry, are you able to access?
https://twitter.com/barosports
And then there’s the Ted:
http://espn.go.com/blog/pac12/post/_/id/89214/mailbag-frankenstein-team-divisional-strength
He thought Riley was amazing, and was a huge proponent of “be careful what you wish for”
Look at this quip: “Gary Andersen is a proven head coach and he’s hired a good staff. Yet, typically, a significant rebuilding job, which Oregon State appears to be, takes three or four years.”
Really? 3 or 4 years? Rebuilding job? I don’t think astute fans see it that way.
I think there is a decent shot they make a bowl this year. Also, coaches rarely get 3 or 4 years in modern times. I’m not sure what’s up with the guy. He also doesn’t mention the OSU WRs, who are excellent 4 deep.
If I read that correctly, OSU joins WSU and Colorado as the only teams to not have a position group selected. Even with a no-repeat rule.
Honestly, that’s about right. Or at least that’s the way I and at least a few other people, like Ted, see it.
Angry, I’m not sure what you’re looking at with this talent you refer too. I’m not sure if the current group of receivers is anywhere near established enough to warrant much attention. They might even be among the least proven in the conference.
Throw in a new qb (and yes, that’s pretty damn important and always has been) and a questionable-at-best running back group. Then a line known for giving up record amounts of sacks and historically inept running outputs, and … well??
The Beavers won’t have a very good defense at all either, so it’s not like theyll be able to win without scoring lots of points.
Put simply, who on the current roster is known for scoring lots of touchdowns?
If Riley’s so great, why is there a 3-4 year rebuilding project left immediately in his wake?
Small airport?
Completely different offensive and defensive systems. Takes time to get guys that fit your system.
I think that’s overemphasized. 7-6 and 5-7 with horrible losses mixed in the last couple of years, and that was with a constant system. It’s not like had Riley stayed we’d be looking at a great season coming up. He didn’t bounce because he felt he had things lined up to excel here.
Jason Quick at media day, doubt this means he will take the place of Connor. But…maybe?
That is too far beneath Quick. He is the highest paid person at the Oregonian (not just writers) he just writes whatever story he wants to do. I would be pretty awesome if he did.
I asked VG (on twitter) how this is okay:
https://twitter.com/VincentGuinta/status/629765671946096640
I’m sure it will be crickets since everyone is conditioned to accept this so long as it’s a minority faction.
Jack, what’s your take on the Poly Power thing?
Asked and answered.
Let’s try and keep up here.
chickenshit
You’re afraid to look? Don’t be too hard on yourself for being scared.
I think you’re over blowing this, since poly can refer to a region of the world as much as it can an ethnicity. Would it bother you so much if our Florida guys posted a picture captioned Florida Power? These guys in your picture here are all from the same place.. of course they’ll stick together. Get over it.
Some good stuff here:
http://www.oregonlive.com/beavers/index.ssf/2015/08/during_fall_camp_oregon_state.html
Been a Beaver fan since 1967, which includes 28 straight losing seasons from 1971 to 1999. During those years we always had a lot of excitement whenever a new coach was hired. Fertig in 1976, Avezzano in 1980, Kragthorpe in 1986, Pettibone in 1992, even Riley in 1997. It always felt like Christmas when we were 0 – 0. I’m not predicting anything now, but it does has an eerie deja vu feeling about it, and I notice OSU is ranked #80 by the AP in the preseason poll, with no other PAC-12 or Big-10 team ranked lower. Nebraska is ranked #41. You got what you wanted, right?
I think the problem is you were excited because of new coaches rather than good coaches. I’m excited because GA is a good coach. If they hired Brady Hoke it would be ho hum.
And yes, we got what we wanted — a good coach instead of a mediocre coach.
I don’t believe those rankings. OSU will finish higher than 80th and win at least 5 games. Don’t know enough about Nebraska, but Riley is good for two bad losses, so add those onto games they should lose.
The masses are usually wrong about everything. You need to understand this. Just look around at mass opinion on almost every topic, and they’re wrong. So I don’t really care what Ted Miller or these Bozo’s say. We have a good to great coach, talent, and I don’t think inexperience matters like others do. Injuries are the wildcard. Tim Cook already out…not good. Injuries could derail this thing, because one thing the Beavs do lack is depth — there is some, but about 1 injury per group is all they can afford.
I agree GA may be different. Also the program *appears* to have the utmost support from the top, i.e., Ray. Those things may make a huge difference, and is why I hedge my bets and am not making any predictions. But, please, keep some perspective, and trust me when I say the down side can go very, very deep.
LOL … we were seeing the “downside”. Riley was fading away. How well do you think this team would do with no Riley style QB of any experience, and Riley still here, going asleep during games?? Mediocre is the way Riley left it.
So to me, GA gets a pass on this coming season. Wins are gravy. With Riley we were already downsided. Now we have at least a chance to do something….
G.J, yes, we got what we wanted. Skepticism and caution are OK, I think I understand your position.
But, do you really think Riley’s game management, decision making, lack of support for his players when they were cheap-shotted, and style of motivation (if that is what it was) were likely to lead to better rankings and conference relevancy?
Read Jason Quick’s article, hear what the players are saying, and then explain why there should not be optimism surrounding this particular coaching change.
How did you feel after Dennis?
I’m not sure what you’re asking here, but I was disappointed when he left for the Niners. That said, anyone who followed Erickson’s peripatetic career knew or should have known that was part of the package going in: He’d only be here for a few years at most before moving on. He did, however, right the ship to a large degree while here though. I give both Riley and Erickson credit for that, but I give more to Erickson. I don’t believe Riley could’ve ever accomplished what Erickson did in 2000.
“I don’t believe Riley could’ve ever accomplished what Erickson did in 2000.”
And you’d be right. Because he never did
Lots of pissed off fans when Fertig was hired. Avezzano was a bad hire, and it was known to be so at the time. He was going to get fired (or get Majors fired) if we didn’t save them both. Kragthorpe was actually a decent hire. It’s too bad Andros bullied people into the other two poor hires because his next hire was going to be someone who did eventually end our consecutive losing seasons.
We were headed into another era of futility. Well, we were in one. Many potential hires would have been better. Many would have been equal or lesser. This one is light years ahead of what anyone thought would happen.
It is too bad we didn’t win the pre-season poll championship. I am really really upset about it now that you’ve pointed it out.
The mention of the pre-season polls got my up vote!
They were all bad hires with 20-20 hindsight. But Fertig was bad. Avezzano? Say what you want, but the guy had a long and successful NFL coaching career after he left, albeit never as a head coach, and mainly as a special teams coach. But the guy knew football. I attribute his failures more to the low level of support the program got from anyone in a position to fix it. Likewise for Kragthorpe. Pettibone I don’t know.
And besides all that, Dee Andros was the real problem. After the 1968 season Auburn U wanted Andros and were set to “steal him away” from OSU, so to keep him administration basically gave him the moon (similar to BCD’s lifetime contract for Riley), including the promise of the AD chair down the road. Immediately after that (literally w/in a month or so) the Fred Milton incident happened. Milton was a star linebacker of African-American descent, and who decided to grow a beard during the off-season. Andros was a decorated ex-Marine from WWII, and kept and enforced strict grooming standards for the team. This was not the zeitgeist in 1969. The black team members protested, called it racial, and it spiraled out of control from there. Whether Andros was a bigot or not, who knows, but he got that reputation at the same time OSU made him the face of the program. Other PAC-8 schools used it against him to great effect in stealing away black recruits. I believe they still try to this day, playing the same race card about Corvallis and OSU generally.
The Milton thing was fascinating. SI actually reposted the story a few years ago, but they took it down. Luckily I am OCD and saved an HTML copy of the webpage for archive purposes. If anyone wants a copy let me know; it’s great.
We know the history of Andros and all. We went to OSU too.
The point is that not all was hunky dory for the Fertig hire. There was a large segment who disliked that hire for many different reasons.
Avezzano was a terrible OC at Tennessee, and we may have given rise to Johnny Majors’ success there by simply taking Joe off his to do list.
Andros wore out his welcome with Avezzano. He was going to hire DE away from Idaho. But he did what he wanted when he wanted with the other two hires, and he was leaving. So that got nixed, and Kragthorpe was hired. He wasn’t a bad hire. But I think you’re right about institutional support (*ahem* who was the AD?). And remember scholarship limits were not yet in place (for another 10 years).
Pettibone was a head scratcher (again… who was the AD?). It sure seemed like everyone was trying to justify his hire every time there was a conversation about him. He had a good D. But nobody who knew anything about football thought the triple option could work in the Pac 10. He did get some good football players to OSU. And then he got nixed just in time for scholarship limits to be enacted.
So… we had Andros and four assistant coaches before we finally went and hired a head coach.
Who was the AD that hired Pettibone, I’m drawing a blank. Didn’t Andros retire in the mid-80’s? I just remember some stuff about the search committee being obsessed with Pettibone after his NIU team scored 70 some points on Fresno State with the flexbone.
Oh! It was just awful. It was so confusing for so long that hiring Jimmy for hoops was a minor grumbly thing that didn’t compare. I mean… kick, pass, punt in the quad? Really?
But at least there was no track and field team there to witness that period.
So who was the AD? Was it still Andros?
Snyder… hate that guy.
God, Snyder…no wonder I couldn’t remember. Lynn baby…with the aviator glasses.
It’s a fact, and facts are stubborn things.
Facts aren’t stubborn. You can’t personify a fact. Idioms like that make the world less intelligent.
And what are you referring to?
Talent is much better as well and we no longer need to rely solely on kids from the region. This in addition to GA is exciting.
Our WRs are a good group overall but not near top in Pac-12 unless they prove it loudly on the field. Baldwin said he was a bit disappointed in the learning curve of the receivers at the end of Spring camp. Most of these guys just haven’t produced enough. Bolden is good but will he be breakout. Villain needs to consistently deliver. Not expecting much from Gilmore. Some of the new faces are promising but unproven to boldly claim yards and consistently keep the chains moving and our offense on the field so the defense gets more time to be fresh.
I hope he turns out to be a villain to all opposing teams this year.
More good stuff from GA
http://www.oregonlive.com/beavers/index.ssf/2015/08/gary_andersen_and_oregon_state.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
Solid story by Quick. Connor was a nice kid, Jason’s “da man”.
The stuff from GA was good, the players comments even better!
Love the Larry Scott comment. “Night and day doesn’t describe the difference [between GA and Riley]. It’s lava and ice.” In other words GA is hot and free flowing. Adapting and demanding and getting the players’ best…while they couldn’t be more stagnant and slow to change to the game than Riley. I’ll take fire and lava every time.
Andersen says the strength numbers were “staggering”…
Poor Nebraska.
NU actually has a strength and conditioning department which is independent of any one sport and the politics of coaching. Osborne believed in it enough that he made it a legacy that will exist across all coaching regimes.
Smart.
I wonder does NU have fewer injuries than schools without this?
There’s a lot of comments about the lack of talent on the roster, which is something I think needs to be examined. It seems like there is more talent than we have had for a while – particularly on both the lines. Gimble, Peko, Isaac – when was the last time we had three bigs of that caliber? As angry has noted, we have an athletic and deep WR group. Woods sounds ready for a breakout season and Brown has a lot of potential. Tight end is a strength. If we get mediocre production from the QB we could have a really solid offense. I don’t know enough about the defense to have much of a hunch about them, but they aren’t being completely rebuilt and we have an upgrade a D coordinator. It’s not like they’ll be WSU bad.
I think a bowl game is likely.
I’ve read The Oregonian stuff……aren’t the players saying (as tactfully as possible) that they were being coached by a bunch of tired fucking old men? I have no idea if having them gone will translate to any wins this season, but isn’t it kind of nice that our thoughts and perspectives were not entirely out to lunch in here? And you have to think over time this energy will translate to a better and SMARTER football program that’s all that matters.
…aren’t the players saying (as tactfully as possible) that they were being coached by a bunch of tired fucking old men? I
Yes.
That’s why a few moths back I did that compilation of quotes. It’s been going on for a while. It’s so awesome.
Right and wrong have nothing to do with others’ denial.
If you’re responding to my comment, I think a little validation is nice now and then, right?
Sure, but why does it have to be subjective?
Not tracking.
Why does it have to depend on what other people think? Correction, why does it have to depend on what specific other people think?
Most of the outside world think as we do. How players perform on the field as a unit, regardless of talent, is how good the coaching staff is at coaching. The head coach sets the tone, intent, mission, structure, discipline, morals and pace of teaching/learning.
We had nine senior starters on D last year. A majority of those players have NFL or borderline NFL talent. There was more than a major disconnect there last year. A refusal to address that by the one person where the buck stops was interesting to watch. Loyalty led to an eventual full overhaul of the position coaches, including an extra D coach over the years. But the position groups were devoid of talent when each was replaced. A focus on recruiting started to bring better players in. But it was incremental. Now those coaches are gone, and we actually have a complete D with a little depth for once. They just don’t have any experience. Riley’s tendency to redshirt everyone and scarcely play underclassmen has benefited us in that we have a fresh group of young and hungry talent who haven’t learned the mistakes of past systems well enough for them to be ingrained.
And the D class in 2015 is really impressive in terms of OSU recruiting. I see some legit eventual NFL talent walking out on the field as true frosh (and JUCOs) this fall.
Unfortunately, they have to learn a system. Just like anything else, they get taught the system then have to play the system before they really learn the system. It wouldn’t be too much to expect them to click in the middle of the first game. Would it?
I think a lot of people still believe Mike Riley was/is a great coach, his ex-players seem to think other wise. I know it doesn’t bother Angry, but he takes a lot of shit for just observing and commenting on the facts (we all have).. It’s cool to see some of things being validated when the local and even national media do their best to keep the Riley narrative alive.
Riley’s a great offensive coach. He’s horrible on the D side and has inferred as much over the years. So we would all be in agreement with him, not that specific group of others whose validation we do not need.
“Riley’s a great offensive coach. He’s horrible on the D side”
Banker is horrible on the D side as well so it was lose/lose
I want to throw this out there since we all like to make predictions. I think Riley may actually have a good season this year at Nebraska. He may be re-energized by the move and is surrounded by talent that has been picked for him. Plus these people are probably already tough from the old regime. I think he could win 9 or so games. The Riley lovers will emerge in full force and troll these boards like it is going out of style. By no means am I a Riley apologist, just think that this is a real possibility. We will see the proof in the pudding a couple years down the road as a once proud program struggles in a weak division of the BigTen.
Brady Hoke @ Michigan redux… if that good.
I think that is a valid point, but the stakes are also much higher. Riley’s margin for error has decreased significantly (and doofus is error prone at times). Even if his team wins 10 games, that may buy him some time, but it still doesn’t put NU in the playoffs. The NU base probably won’t come out and say it right now, but the expectation is to be one of the four best teams EVERY year. I actually think Riley is a smarter business man then a football coach, it’s a nice nest egg build for him and the boys before they sail off into the sunset.
Ahhh… the beachcomber’s retirement fund?
Hill Country beach front property?
Doesn’t he he live out near Amistad?
I don’t know…closer to San Antonio? Will he bring the whole “crew” back to Corvallis to retire? Awkward!
Riley calling a timeout:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhKhGyUnc2E