Stanford at Oregon
Covid not only resulted in complete cancellations this past Saturday, but it also created some uneven playing fields in some of the contests that were played. As if it wasn’t going to be tough enough by having to travel to take on last year’s PAC-12 Champion and Rose Bowl winner Oregon, Stanford announced a few hours prior to the start of the game that their starting QB, Davis Mills, would be unavailable because of his testing results and contact tracing protocols. Also out would be one of their leading receivers, best edge rusher and top cornerback.
Junior QB Jack West, starting in only the second game of his career, was certainly efficient if not that successful for the Cardinal, connecting on better than 68% of his passes for 154 yards without an interception, but also without a score. Unfortunately, Stanford was only able to score once on their first six trips inside Oregon’s 35 yard line. I think Coach Shaw might want to communicate with Christian Zendajas over at Arizona State to see if there are anymore cousins in the pipeline as Stanford’s field goal kicker went zip-for-four including two that were 35 yards or less. Coach Shaw even gave his new 6’ 6” freshman QB Tanner McKee a shot who connected on just 3 of 7 for 62 yards, also without a score. If there was a high point for Stanford it had to be in their run game with Sophomores Austin Jones and Nathaniel Peat picking up 193 and 2 rushing TD’s by Jones in his first game as lead back. The QB’s combined to connect multiple times with five different receivers for well over 200 yards, but just couldn’t make a difference on the scoreboard.
Oregon brings back RB sensation CJ Verdell who has consecutively rushed for over 1,000 yards in each of his last two seasons. He didn’t disappoint, carrying the ball 20 timess for 105 yards and one rushing TD. Junior RB Travis Dye and QB Tyler Shough also got in on the running attack for the Ducks, picking up over 160 yards on 17 carries and two more TD’s. In the air Shough connected with five different receivers 17 of 26 times for 227 yards, one TD, and one pick.
Oregon picked up 59 tackles, just six more than the Cardinal with both teams accredited with 37 solo tackles. I guess Oregon’s Camden Lewis didn’t want Stanford’s Senior Place Kicker Jet Toner to feel too bad about missing his four attempts and missed his only try as well-with the field goal kickers an unincredible 0-5 on the day. If playing without your starting QB and missing all four of your field goal attempts isn’t enough, Stanford also worked against themselves with 10 penalties for 100 yards. There’s work to do on The Farm for sure and getting their QB and starting receiver Connor Wedington back on the field should help. How much, we’ll see as they host Colorado next Saturday in their home opener. Oregon hits the road to take only completely revamped Washington State up in Pullman.
Washington at California
Unfortunately for both teams, who were expected to complete for the PAC-12 North Divison Title, this game was cancelled. The conference made the following announcement last Thursday: “This decision was made under the Pac-12’s football game cancellation policy due to Cal not having the minimum number of scholarship players available for the game as a result of a positive student-athlete COVID-19 case and resulting isolation of additional football student-athletes under contact tracing protocols.” There was no mention of the game being made up at a later date.
According to Cal Sport; “Cal announced on Wednesday night that one of its players had tested positive after taking both a daily antigen and PCR test. Others players, described by coach Justin Wilcox as a ’significant’ number, entered quarantine for contact tracing purposes. Because of the number of players in quarantine, the Bears obviously believed they had no choice but to ask the Pac-12 to cancel the game.” Pac-12 protocols call for athletes with confirmed positives to isolate for at least 10 days and until symptoms resolve. An athlete who has had high-risk contact with a confirmed positive must quarantine for 14 days.
Washington State at Oregon State
This was the matchup against a team that returned their entire coaching staff in Oregon State vs Washington State, a team that is completely starting over with theirs. I’m sure I thought the Beavers would take this after the annoucement that the Cougar’s star RB Max Borghi had sustained an unspecified injury and would not be able to play, but they didn’t-losing at home in Corvallis 38-28. Well more than a year ago, before the 2019 season even began, Bill Connelly at SBNation in his preview referred to the Oregon State Defense as, “a master work in awfulness.”
There was a lot of off-season talk about improvements and I felt last year that most of the time they were just out-sized in almost every contest. Well, they have added some bigger players but so far there’s not enough improvement to make much of a difference giving up over 450 yards in total offense including 147 yards to Borghi’s back-up Deon McIntosh in his first career start. Lots of missed tackles which I guess can probably be attributed to not enough practice and no chance to improve before the conference began with all the non-conference games cancelled. But that was the case for both teams.
According to the writeup at beaversedge.com it was the third quarter where Oregon State really lost all chance of coming back and winning the game. They were trailing coming out of the break 14-7, but got the ball to start the 2nd half only to produce two three-and-outs in a row combined with horrible punts, giving the Cougars great field position and leading to a couple of TD’s-really putting the game out of reach the way their defense was playing before they could even launch a comeback.
In spite of the loss there were some good things to hang onto going forward for Oregon State. Junior Tristan Gebbia completed 70%+ of his passes connecting on 34 of 48 for 329 yards, one TD and no interceptions. On the ground Junior RB Jermar Jefferson was brilliant, rushing for 120 yards and 3 TD’s on 21 attempts. Washington State took a more committee like approach to their ground game as three RB’s combined for 339 yards and a TD each with Senior Deon McIntosh leading the way while rushing 18 times for 147 yards, averaging 8+ yards per carry. In the air Freshman Jayden De Laura, in his very first college game, connected on 18 of 33 for for 227 yards, 2 TD’s, and 1 pick for the Cougars while also contributing 43 additional yards and another score on the ground.
Hats off to new WSU head coach Nick Rolovich who had a tough act to follow in Mike Leach, but so far so good. As I wrote in my preview of the North, other than Washington State the Beavers had no give-me games on the schedule and will have to really earn that move up from their 5th place projection in the PAC-12 North. Head Coach Jonathan Smith has a hard road ahead starting with Washington this next Saturday up in Husky Stadium then host Cal and Oregon in back-to-back games at home. As for Washington State, they face off against Oregon this coming week and then hit the road south to Palo Alto to take on Stanford.