After that USC 17-14 loss at home in a game they should have won and then dropping another the very next week on the road in Salt Lake to Utah, Oregon State Head Coach Jonathan Smith has to be breathing a sigh of relief after this one. But as the AP described it in their recap for ESPN it went right down to the wire as; “Ben Gulbranson [Oregon State backup starting in place of an injured Chance Nolan] threw a 56-yard touchdown pass to Tre’Shaun Harrison with 13 seconds remaining and Oregon State overcame a 14-point deficit in the fourth quarter to beat Stanford 28-27 on Saturday night.” Whew! With the Cougars, Huskies, and Ducks still yet to play the Beaver’s 4-2 overall record puts them in a much better position to become bowl eligible than 3-3 would have been had they lost.
When talking about injuries you hear coaches say, “next man up,” all the time. But as David Steele noted in a 2018 article for The Sporting News regarding an injury to San Francisco 49er starting QB Jimmy Garoppolo; “ As much as the NFL prides itself on its “next man up” philosophy, it almost never applies with superstars, and it applies even less with franchise quarterbacks.” Same can be said for the college game and expecting that Ben Gulbranson was going to be able to come in and lead the Beavers to a much needed win in place of their starter was a tall ask. But it was a challenge that he met head on matching his Stanford counterpart, Tanner McKee, yard-for-yard and TD-for-TD while connecting on just under 70% of his passes for 250 yards, 2 TD’s and no picks to McKee’s 269 yards, 2 TD’s, and 1 interception–thrown in a last desperate attempt to win the game with just seconds left and trailing by one.
Through three quarters it didn’t look like Oregon State had a snowball’s chance to pull this one off trailing 7-0 at the end of the 1st Qtr, 17-7 at the break, and 24-10 after three. But then they lite it up with three TD’s in the 4th Qtr in less than six minutes of possession while holding the Cardinal to two punts, a field goal, and an interception. Even after all this time it still surprises me to look at how anemic Stanford’s running game can be compared to year’s past. In this one they rushed 27 times for 90 yards and 1 TD by Junior RB Casey Filkins compared to 40 carries, 192 yards and 2 TD’s for Oregon State—one by Freshman RB Damien Martinez who rushed three times for 83 yards (27+ average per carry) and the other by dependable Senior LB 6’ 3” 240lb Jack Colletto. Considering how disruptive the Stanford defense was—70 tackles, 4 sacks, and 8 tackles for loss—it’s really surprising that Gulbranson didn’t throw a single interception.
Stanford Head Coach David Shaw had this to say about what looked to be his team’s best game of the year in spite of the loss; “I’m not going to be all sunshine about us playing our best game because we have to finish. We had a chance to put the game away and didn’t do it.” There won’t be much time for Shaw or the team to lament about the one that got away because they’re headed north of South Bend Indiana to Notre Dame Stadium to take on the Fighting Irish this next Saturday while Oregon State goes back home to Corvallis where they are unbeaten this year to take on Washington State, also 4-2 overall and 1-2 in conference.