Three Guys in a Basement

As I’ve previously proven, wearing a helmet visor makes on a better football player.  Tonight, Oregon State once again proved me right.  In case you live under a rock…or live on the east coast so the game ended after midnight, the Oregon State Beavers handed #1 USC a convincing 27-21 loss today.  In all seriousness, OSU’s quarterback, Lyle Moevao, wore a helmet visor during the game.  Did he wear one in their opening season losses?  No, he didn’t.  Did he wear one last week in their win against Hawaii?  I’m not sure, but I’m guessing yes.

As an Oregon native who was also in the same pre-school and high school class as 2005 Biletnikoff winner, Mike Hass, I’m especially qualified to write about Oregon State.  I recommend any Notre Dame fan (and definitely Charlie Weis), to watch the first half of this game.  The Beavers put on a clinic for how to gain yards on the Trojans and stop their offense on their way to a 21-0 halftime lead.  Granted, it helps when you have a badass freshman running back who doesn’t even need a helmet to run for 186 yards, 2 TDs to go along with his 27 yards receiving.

This was an extremely interesting game that OSU was able to dominate thanks to a great running game.  I’m no schematic expert, but OSU seemed to keep it very simple, and ran the same running play at least two dozen times.  They had a sweet zone running scheme up the middle with a receiver in motion, out of which they could run a variety of plays.  USC had an awesome third quarter where they were able to score 14 unanswered points while stopping OSU for most of the time.  In the fourth, OSU went back to their bread and butter running plays, and sustained some drives but couldn’t quite get points out of them. 

As much as OSU dominated with the running, USC was always in the game, and I had that thought in the forefront of my mind that USC was going to end up winning.  This game was very similar to ND’s loss to MSU, in that USC had chances at the end, but couldn’t overcome their mistakes.  There were countless drive-killing penalties, plus 2 turnovers to OSU’s none.  But the difference was the presence of a time-consuming, chain-moving running game that wasn’t able to give USC adequate chances.  Also lost in this is my opinion that OSU’s coach, Mike Riley, is one of the more under-rated coaches in college.  For whatever reason, his OSU teams always start off the season slowly, but end up finishing strong down the stretch.  It would be nice to see OSU use this win to kick-start a successful Pac-10 season (in an awfully abysmal Pac-10).

Friday Morning Update:  The more I think about this game, the more I realize how awesome it was.  It’s too bad that so many college football fans probably didn’t see it (or even knew it was on).  What I loved about this game was that it exemplified why college football is so great.  OSU has no business winning games like this, but here they are, having done it two out of the past 3 years against USC.  They didn’t do it by having better athletes, they didn’t do it with trick plays, and they didn’t do it by out-scheming the Trojans.  In an X’s and O’s sense, Pete Carroll and his staff did not get out-coached.  Mike Riley out-coached the Trojans by making sure that the Beaver players played with the type of passion that this game needed.  This game was a pretty simple case of one set of players out-playing the other team.  USC has a team full of future NFL players.  OSU has a team half of which wouldn’t be playing Div. 1-A if they didn’t grow up in Oregon.  Their starting right tackle is a redshirt freshman local kid who is only playing because of injuries.  Their starting right D-end is a former walk-on safety who probably weighed 210 lbs when he was a freshman.  That safety who intercepted Sanchez at the end was a special teams player up until this season, who transferred from Northern Arizona, and who is also a baseball player who was on OSU’s national championship teams.  James Rodgers, the older brother of the stud running back pictured above, scored two touchdowns including a circus catch at the end of the first half to put up the Beavers 21-0.  His only other scholarship offer? Div. 1-AA Texas State.

For whatever reason, sometimes teams don’t show up to play, as was the case for USC’s first half.  OSU’s offensive and defensive lines out-manned vastly more talented players across from them, and I have to think that it was entirely due to how motivated they were to take on the #1 team at home.  USC had just beaten a vastly over-rated Ohio State team, and must have been watching Sportscenter, thinking that they could cruise through the Pac-10 season.  On top of that, USC played sloppily with a stupid fumble as they were about to score in the first half, and several 15-yard penalties.

As a Notre Dame fan, it gives me a little bit of hope.  If ND’s players can get up to play, they should continue to have games like they did against Michigan this season.  If they play with no passion, they are going to look like the ND team against SDSU and MSU…or USC against Oregon State.  Granted, the Michigan game was won in Willingham-esque fashion, taking advantage of stupid mistakes and turnovers by the Wolverines, but anyone who was at the game can not deny the excitement and passion with which the team played.  The excitement I felt at Notre Dame Stadium two weeks ago must have been similar to what is was like in Corvallis last night.  Now I wish I left work an hour early yesterday to drive down to watch the game.

Filed under: Beat Downs, Expert Analysis