The Beavers stay unbeaten in Corvallis, easily knocking off Cal 38-10 highlighted by a 55 yard punt return to the house as their back-up QB Ben Gulbranson connected on 65% of his passes for 137 of their 196 yards in the air with 2 TD’s and no interceptions as well as rushed four times for another score. Once again Freshman RB Damien Martinez did most of the hard work on the ground rushing 23 times for 105 of their 166 yard total with Sophomore RB Jam Griffin picking up their other rushing TD. Connecting with five different receivers multiple times, Senior WR Tre’shaun Harrison and 6’ 4” Freshman TE Jack Velling were the recipients of the TD’s in the air. The Beaver defense recorded 50 tackles, 2 sacks, and 6 tackles for loss, really impeding Cal’s running game which was basically non-existant rushing 16 times for just 9 yards against a really stiff Oregon State defense. They picked up a lot more yards in the air with Jack Plummer on 22-of-34 for 147 yards and 1 interception.
After scoring 35 points in their loss to USC the only TD Cal scored in this one was courtesy of Oregon State on a fumble returned for touchdown late in the 2nd Qtr. The Beavers led the whole way, 14-0 at the end of the 1st Qtr, 21-7 at the break, 31-7 after 3, and 38-10 when it was all over. It could have been more but Head Coach Jonathan Smith pulled Gulbranson the last five minutes of the game. Oregon State led this one in 1st Downs, 21-10; Rushing Yards, 166-9; Total Yards, 362-156; in addition to having possession for 13 more minutes than Cal.
“A really solid win in all three phases,” Oregon State coach Jonathan Smith said. “A good, solid win at home. Obviously throughout the night defensively.” Cal’s Head Coach Justin Wilcox had this say; “We haven’t played up to the standard that we’ve set as a team. We haven’t coached well enough, we haven’t played well enough. It is totally unacceptable.” You have to take your hat off to Jonathan Smith as well as the powers to be at Oregon State who gave him the time to rebuild a program that was 1-11 the season before he took over. They have gone from a program that players would avoid to one in which Smith has been able to pick up high-impact players who want to be there through the transfer portal in addition to recruiting classes of hard working right minded student athletes regardless of the number of stars by their name—much like his mentor Chris Petersen did at Boise State and Washington.
Oregon State should be able to pick up their 8th win on the road this next Saturday against Arizona State while with a conference record of 1-6 Cal will host Stanford with a conference record of 1-7 to determine the worst of the worst in the PAC-12.