Alright, doods, back on track here.

So as I was saying below, I think the Beavs have weather and start time as the intangible working against them. In order to make up for that handicap, they need to bring their own intangibles, and I actually think they do. Playing a difficult early schedule could help here. Stanford and Michigan, two of the more physical teams in college this year, should have toughened up the Beavs. And this is the most interesting part of the game to me: did the Beavs learn (physicality) from their loses or not? If so, then they were Laevinic defeats. Those are the types of defeats we want: “alright, we lost, but we learned xyz, and it will never happen again.” Riley teams never seemed to have it, and now we see how quickly Andersen can instill that trait.

Another key to this game: Seth Collins has walked a tightrope thus far with turnovers. He should be coughing it up more than he is given his reckless style and iffy throws. Collins has been serviceable so far, if we’re being fair. I just think he has the law of averages working against him.

So my feeling: if Collins luck doesn’t run out, and the Beavs learned how to be physical, they can very easily win this game. And visa versa. In the pre-season I had this marked as a loss. This Conference is erratic, though. Each week we seem to have surprising outcomes (that maybe shouldn’t be surprising anymore). It tells me the teams are all close, even the perceived “bad” teams. And conversely, the teams at the top probably aren’t all that good. Utah might be the best team in the conference. They’ve been the most consistent. Anyway, I am sticking to this one being a loss, but have an underlying positive feeling about it, too. Beav’s depth is so thin, and that might show again as this game goes on. I expect an even game until the 4th quarter when the Beavs finally wear down.

Let’s be clear: this is a season defining game. If they can win this, it changes all expectations and puts the program ahead of schedule. For this reason, it’s a big game. The two games after this (Washington State and Colorado) should be wins, so they can conceivably win three games in a row. They can also drop all three (i.e. the volatility of a young, growing team).

31-24, Arizona.

Go Beavs!

First off, apologies for Kafka-ing into Mike Parker. Those refs got to me. Period.

Beavs got out-physicaled..again. Two times now, so it’s a pattern, but they did look slightly better tonight than versus Michigan.

Speaking of patterns, I said the QB situation would take at least six weeks (maybe all season) to shake out. The pattern with Collins is he runs all over D2 and low level D1 teams, but can’t run on legit D1 defenses. He can throw a slant. He can throw a decent deep ball. He can’t throw much else. Awful spirals, which could explain the drops. So the offense is one step forward, two back with him. Each drive seems to have a wasted down due to his inefficiency. It’s hard to win with 2 downs per drive. Subject to change, but if we’re being blunt, that’s what this guy is, despite the flashes of brilliance people want to cling to. Potential means little unless it’s realized. Consistently good performance > inconsistent great performances. E.g. I’d take Hogan in a heartbeat over Collins. He’s consistently boring and good, rarely if ever great. Collins’ body language on the sideline has become concerning…it looks like moping, as a commenter pointed out.

Bolden continues to make mistakes. He rebounded to a degree and had an okay game, but he’s the Seth Collins of the WRs — a great play here, an awful play there. Just no consistency.

Ryan Nall looked great. Then he didn’t play much the rest of the game. Why?

Again no TE involvement in the offense. For an offense like this to run, there has to be work over the middle and check downs. Can’t throw a slant or fly pattern every pass play.

Beavs D is subject to being pushed around. Again, mental and physical toughness is a problem. I wasn’t paying extremely close attention, but I saw some 3-4, which makes little sense vs. Stanford. Huge gaps/holes for those Stanford RBs. What were Mageo’s final numbers? People were raving he’s a stud. I didn’t see him doing much — every tackle by a LB seemed to be 6-8 yards downfield. I wasn’t impressed with anyone on D tonight. Stanford’s OC called a great game and had them off balance all night.

The Pac-12 really needs to look into the referee situation. It’s a real problem to have refs determining games. Ultimately they probably didn’t tonight because the Beavs wore down, but you never know how things could have been different if they get that proper call.

Overall, the most frustrating game of the year so far. Looking at my list, I had Weber and San Jose as wins, and Michigan and Stanford as loses, so we’re right on track. You’d like to see good loses where the team looks close to making a break through. Beavs didn’t look close in either loss.

I’ll be taking a vacation starting Monday, so I’ll have a general thread up through the bye until I get home. Beavs get a bye at a great time and have a lot of time to get better.