There are six PAC-12 teams that are already half-way to becoming bowl eligible with Oregon State being one of those. The Beavers had no problem dismantling Montana State this past Saturday to the tune of 68-28. As Ken Goe wrote in his review for OregonLive; “An enthusiastic, capacity crowd of 25,218 showed up at Providence, home stadium of the Portland Timbers [and] got their money’s worth while watching [Beaver] quarterback Chance Nolan pick Montana State apart. Nolan had his choice of open receivers all night, throwing for 276 yards and four scores. Every time you looked, Tre’Shaun Harrison, Anthony Gould, Tyjon Lindsey or Silas Bolden was snagging a pass with room to run.”
It took a little while to really crank it up although Oregon State took the ball to the house on their very first possession, a 7 play 90 yard drive culminating in a 25 yard TD run by Junior RB DeShaun Fenwick to take an early 7-0 lead. Montana State would come right back with a six minute, 10 play 66 yard drive that ended in a similar fashion on a 7 yard TD run by their Junior QB Sean Chambers to tie the score at seven a piece. But after that the Beavers would score two consecutive bookend TD’s on either side of another score by Montana State—two of which were the result of interceptions to go out in front 34-to-14 at the break.
The second half was more of the same with Oregon State seeming to score at will—20 more in the 3rd and 14th in the 4th–with the Bobcats putting their seven points up each quarter. Nolan connected on better than 75% of his passes for 276 yards and 4 TD in the air as well one of their five rushing TD’s on the ground—all by five different runners. All together the Beavers rushed 42 times for 214 yards and 5 TD’s with a better than 80% 3rd down efficiency. Added to their 324 yards in the air Oregon State outpaced the Bobcats 538-to-269 in total yards.
One of the goals for Oregon State this year was to get back to a bowl game, but this time win it. As Ken Goe points out in his column, Jonathan Smith has rebuilt this program the old fashioned way and writes; “The Beavers recruit players they can keep and develop. It takes patience and a coaching staff that emphasizes teaching and toughness.” Not a surprise as he comes from the coaching tree of Chris Petersen having coached for Petersen at both Boise State and Washington. This next week they’ll be hosting No. 7 USC a program seemingly rebuilt overnight, first with the $110 million dollar acquisition of Lincoln Riley from Oklahoma State and then with 26 transfers, 9 of whom are starters including USC’s outstanding Sophomore QB Caleb Williams. But regardless of how they were built both programs are winning although Oregon State, as Goe puts it is, “unranked and overlooked.” That could change drastically with a win over USC at home in Corvallis. The Southern California version of Oklahoma is averaging a staggering 50 points a game and it’s clear that you can score all the points you want against the Trojans, but they’re going to score more. With Oregon State averaging just 5 points less at 45 it may come down to mistakes and good fortune. It should be a barn burner.