1. The line play is atrocious. Both sides of the ball. No pass rush. I said this week 1, because we played PSU and didn’t sniff Hubel’s jock, but people kept saying, “Angry, we didn’t TRY to blitz or try to get pressure!” That never made sense to me, because why would a team not try to pressure a QB? Also, the same happened against UNLV, and I heard the same thing. Can we officially put a fork in the pass rush, guys?
On the flip side, the offensive line is terrible, and this goes back to all those walk-ons who are starting. I made various posts about this issue and essentially everything I said is coming to fruition. Who was standing with hands on hips after every sack? Either Mike Remmers or Grant Johnson.
2. Sean Canfield is a heart breaker. Yes, he’s handsome, but I’m not talking about a heart breaker with regards to the ladies. He teases you. Shows flashes of brilliance. Flashes where you say, “I was wrong, this guy can play.” But when there’s pressure he simply makes bad decisions. He doesn’t appear nervous. I don’t think it’s performance anxiety; I think it’s simply that he makes stupid decisions. This seems to be a problem with OSU QBs going back to Derrik Anderson. Feel bad for the guy because he seems to be a great person and teammate.
3. That safety, #28, the one with the weird name, he should have his scholarship yanked. He might be the worst “safety” in OSU history. At least since the 28 year losing streak…wasn’t around for that, but I’m sure those guys were worse. Maybe not. Any old timers who can confirm?
4. @Arizona State is always a loss, so we’re looking at the annual 2-3 start, but more importantly, we’re looking at an 0-2 PAC-10 start.
5. Arizona is likely the worst PAC-10 team besides Washington State. So where do we get a win on this schedule? I’ve watched enough football to know every week is a new mindset and anything can happen (see Cal vs Oregon), but realistically, looking at this schedule I see 1 more game on the schedule we can mark as a win, and it’s the one vs Washington State. Stanford is a game we could win, but their line play is superior to ours so I see it playing out much like this game tonight.
6. This is all about the athletes. The rest of the PAC-10 has been out-recruiting us for years now and it’s visible on the field. Stoops is an excellent recruiter, and now that he has all his guys, he beats us. Realize the Beavers won 9 of the last 10 vs Arizona. The two teams with the worst recruiting right now, OSU and WSU, are fielding the worst teams.
7. I’m not going to blame this game on Canfield. Bone-head pick late in the game, but if you yield 37 points to an Arizona team with a QB who hasn’t started since high school, a team that lost both an all-conference RB and TE, then you look no further than the defense. Specifically the lack of a pass rush.
8. Can we begin a discussion about special teams? Hekker’s punt. Kaput’s kick out of bounds late in the game. Refusing to catch two punts inside the 20 yard line. We blamed our last coach, the deadbeat from the south, on the special teams play, but simply put it’s the players. We don’t have good players. We need to recruit a prep kicker and give the kid a scholarship. Yes, Hekker is on scholie, but he shouldn’t be…one good game in the Sun Bowl does not make a resume.
9. Adding insult to injury, the Golden Domers eked out a win vs Purdue and will probably be in the top 10.
10. Beavers don’t have the talent to reload. It’s a rebuilding job. Translation: load up on the gin.
I wish I could disagree. Our line play on both sides is awful. We can’t get any penetration on D and we can’t properly block on the offensive side. At this point, I’d pencil us in for 5 wins. But then again, we’ve been in this position before and come up with 9 or 10 wins. Hopeful but realistic. Yikes.
Tim Clark beaten for a td on a fade and he wasn’t even aware the ball was coming. Tuamanei (28) or whatever his name is has given up 4 touchdowns in 2 games now. At least Dockery bounced back from his horrendous play in the first half. Mitchell didn’t start and Collins did nothing spectacular but nothing horrific as well.
I gave my tickets to a friend this week and I’m glad I did. It would be a long depressing drive home right now.
I think ANGRY is right. We are getting out recruited. Even UA’s 3rd stringers looked all PAC-10 against us, bigger, faster. Their “rookie” QB looked All League against our defense. No pass rush. Hard to stop the quick pass etc.
Is it me or do we just seem to be short on good players this year?
Out recruited is right. we are going downhill… while we have had a strong program gradually getting weaker.
Loved last year’s class with Enger, Andrews, and Phillip on the line and Wheaton at WR. We get slaughtered recruiting battles for defensive players. That’s what’s killing us. We have no DTs or DEs, average CBs, average LBs, and 1 terrible safety. The only players on D are Kristick and Mitchell.
Actually I thin Arizona will be quite good this year. Its a team that almost beat a very very good Iowa team. Yeah, the guys that just knocked Penn State out of the top 5. I know we didn’t look good, but I have faith that with Canfield replaced and some tweaks we can still come out at PAC-10 Champs. But don;t think for a second Arizona is not a very good team.
No, Arizona will be 7th in the conference at best. They aren’t good. You can’t apply the transitive property (i.e. of algebra) to football. What Iowa did tonight and what Arizona did vs Iowa are 100% mutually exclusive.
Sorry about the typos, still a little shaken up by the game tonight. Two weeks in a row with horrible clock management and decisions in the final crucial minutes.
I don’t care about typos. Gin helps with the shakes and post-game depression. I didn’t need any tonight because I saw the loss coming at halftime and prepared myself accordingly. It’s like when someone you know is slowly dying for ten years–when it finally happens it’s just an expectation that’s met.
You could tell the game was over at halftime due to the play of both lines.
I agree, the line play on both sides is horrible. The secondary play is subpar. I don’t know about the LBs either way. On offense it’s the line. No run blocking and no pass protection. There may be a QB controversy in there, but it’s so far down the list it doesn’t warrant a mention at this point.
There might be a recruiting issue as you say, but I can’t figure out why there should be. It was Riley after all who was the one who took over the old moribund program of 28 losing seasons in 1997 and recruited the athletes who 3-4 years later were one field goal away from the national championship. So it would seem he knows how to recruit. And the program has had success after success since then, the bowl win over Pitt, the one over Missouri, a steady stream of players going to the NFL. Why would OSU be a tough sell?
I’m thinking it’s Riley and his braintrust. Not that Riley doesn’t know what he’s doing, but it’s as if he’s got it all somewhat on cruise control. They had to know in advance that with graduation in Spring 2009 they’d have holes to fill.
When I say it’s a recruiting issue, I mean that Riley is recruiting those 2 star “diamonds in the rough” but the rest of the PAC-10 is recruiting polished athletes. Look at the trend in the PAC-10 and it’s towards great recruiters before great coaches…in the last two years: Harbaugh, Sark, Neuheisel, Erikson, and Stoops. All 5 are all world recruiters. This means two things:
1. Those five schools have and continue to steal recruits from the Beavs.
2. They land better athletes.
How many players will we send to the NFL this year or next year? I don’t see any possibilities.
Since moving to Corvallis 13 yrs ago, I have grown to become an OSU fan. However, I think the obvious issue OSU has, has always had, and probably always will have, with regard to recruiting, is media exposure. The really *good* players don’t want to come to sleepy Corvallis. What’s the most they can hope for? Write-ups in the GT, SJ, or the Oregonian?? That isn’t big time exposure. Hey guys, this is their career, every highly touted recruit has the intention of NFL and big payday on their minds. Their chance of getting that at Cal, Stanford, UW, ASU – big cities with big media machines – are much greater. Needless to say LA means instant & constant exposure (makes one wonder how UCLA can do so poorly?). USC is almost a guaranteed NFL contract, issue there is how far down the depth chart you end up. UO has a long-standing reputation and lots of PK money to back them up, so they also consistently out-recruit OSU, and likely always will. Backwaters of the Pac10? WSU, UA, OSU.
Riley and the Beavers have to really offer something special to these guys – above and beyond to make up for the lack of exposure – to lure them in. Even the few times they’ve been ranked, OSU gets little national attention. I think this is just a reality and unless OSU can reel off 4 or 5 years of consistent top 10 or 15 rankings, this will always be the case (ala Casey and the baseball situation). The story of the “the little engine that could…” plays out here all the time. Hence, their recruits will likely always be mid-level players (a standout occasionally) who really aren’t entering college as “expected” NFL caliber players, but perhaps might blossom as NCAA players only (e.g., Simonton, Bernard, et al). Chicken and egg thing – which comes first, the consistent ranking/notoriety, or high-level recruits? Frankly, I’m amazed that OSU has been as competitive in the Pac 10 for the past several years as they have, given the deck stacked against them.
It’s a good post, but why is Robinson able to come in and in 1 year get a top 25 recruiting class? Why is Pat Casey able to land top 25 recruiting classes?
Yes, Robinson has a nice connection, but I think even without that he’d get a top 40 class because he’s a great salesman, has energy, passion, and goes after it.
What the OSU staff needs more than anything else is a Sark, Kiffen, etc…a young, hungry coach who can relate to the inner city kid and get after them aggressively. Look at the OSU football recruiters. We had a great chance to get a recruiter on staff two years ago and went with Heyward. Cal and USC went through lulls, even in those “great media markets” and it was due to recruiting. Carroll is a great recruiter. Tedford is a great recruiter (hell, he steals a few of ours every year). Sark is a great recruiter. Harbaugh is a great recruiter. Stoops is a great recruiter–see, even Arizona in that market lands their share of “best of the west” recruits…usually at least a handful of 4 star guys. It’s not their exposure, media, market, etc…it’s the pitch and who’s delivering it.
Not arguing your point about the recruiting capability here. There’s no doubt the other guys have an edge – either thru passion, motivation, knowledge, go-getter behavior, whatever. Riley is a laid-back guy, seems to like this ‘family atmosphere’ thing, and I suppose it suits the town’s general demeanor (hell, that’s why I live here). But…it doesn’t make you competitive in this league. And, all I’m saying is, the exposure issue only makes it that much more difficult to lure high-end recruits. If Riley was at USC, he’d be getting better recruits than he gets here, cuz it’s SC. I’ve met Robinson, our daughters are friends, he’s a good guy, no doubt motivated to build a program, but we know there’s another attraction there besides OSU at play. Casey built a winner the hard way, now he can reap those benefits (the other point i was trying to make). So I DO agree with you AB, just supplementing your point with another factor impacting recruiting. The school, its name, rep, and location, play a big part in the decisions these kids make.
Those are all valid points. I guess what discourages me is the UA game made us appear to be going backwards. The last couple of years it looked like we were building a solid program. Beat Cal, AZ state, UA, OR twice, UCLA, USC, WA several times. I thought these wins would translate into better and better players wanting to come to OSU. But it seems Div I prospects would rather play at UCLA, UA AZ state, Cal than come north to rainy Oregon. Our guys looked smaller and not as physically mature as the opposition.
I dont know why OSU would be a tough sell with the past success and the “family” atmosphere. You can get a solid education at OSU if you want to. OSU grads competed just as well as Stanford grads at my Fortune 500 company.
A while back I heard a story that a Bay Area college coach was telling recruits that Corvallis was a racist town.
Mr. AB … do you have any further thoughts on this?
#2. Angry, can we now agree on Canfield’s atrociousness? Yes, he shows moments of decency (disguised as brilliance because we have become conditioned to atrocious). But again, in pressure, he fails, and fails, and fails… Horrible decisions, yes. I cant stand watching the guy, hanging out in the pocket until hes sacked because everybody has run routs out of his range (within 10 yards), or dumping the ball 2-3 yards on pivotal drive-ending 3rd and 8s with LBs and safety’s up in cover 1’s and 2s.
I know the coaching doesn’t help, our offense is way too predictable.
I still don’t think he’s horrible or the cause of Saturday’s loss.
@ home vs Arizona. Arizona without the TE or RB. Defense gives up 37. None of that has anything to do with Canfield. Canfield, if anything, was close to bailing them out in the 4th. He choked, which I expected because he just isn’t clutch, but that the team was in that position was the defenses fault. I blame the loss on #28 more than Canfield.
During the 28 year losing streak, we had lots of good safetys. Bronco Mendenhall, the head coach at BYU comes to mind….
And Reggie Tongue…..
Oh yeah, Reggie Tongue. That’s a good one. Bronco was before my time. Didn’t even realize he played for us, honestly.
Another SS who was pretty good was Larry Vladic. He had a drink of water with the Washington Redskins after signing as a free agent with them in 1990.
Bronco was a big hitter and very active. Of course, he got lots of opportunities back then.
After 4 games this year, what stands out to me is that I don’t know the names of our defensive front because their names are never called. You all know #28 and Dockery and Clark and the LB’s because they are making all the plays. Mike was right in his post-game comments – it’s hard to sack a guy who is throwing bubble screens or only dropping back three steps. But, the front four aren’t exactly stuffing the run either.