Key to the OSU game

[cr8zyncalif]

Sure, you could come up with several responses to this. And I bet a lot of them would either involve the OSU offense or their D backs. But the view from my porthole says it will all be about the ability of the Beavs to mount a pass rush.

I actually bothered to watch the Beavs for the past couple of games, and at the risk of grossly over-simplifying things, here goes:

The Beavs don't get much of a pass rush without a blitz. I have no statistics to back me up, but it looks to me as though they probably blitz more than any other PAC team. You know the old saw...it was old when I learned it 50 years ago..."the team that lives by the blitz, dies by the blitz". The teams that had problems with the Beavs this year were by and large the teams that had O lines which were either weak or in injury turmoil and could not consistently pick up the blitz.

The Beavs played some pretty good games this year, including beating a couple (ASU & Cal) that beat us, so they aren't patsy material.

I think it will come down to Gordon's time to throw and the OL's ability to pick up the blitz.

Agree or disagree?

 

[chipdouglas]

We have scored, and will continue to score, against everybody this year outside of Cal and UW (sorry on the last one but I'll believe it when I see it). They just have the scheme and the ponies to stop it.

I believe it will come down to turnover ratio. If we are anything worse than -2, we have the offense - but not the defense or consistent special teams play - to survive.

 

[32eekortS]

Oregon State sucks. They are not a good team, they are not a mediocre team. They are poopy-butt, stinky. They have zero ability to stop the run. Max Borghi is always an underutilized weapon, but if Gordon emphasizes him on Saturday this game should be a blowout. Oregon State will effectively abuse our secondary and linebackers with slant routes and will mix in the run. You can expect them to score about 35 points, give or take. Our offense, if they're smart and execute, should score 50 points, give or take.

 

[Flatlandcoug]

We have scored, and will continue to score, against everybody this year outside of Cal and UW (sorry on the last one but I'll believe it when I see it). They just have the scheme and the ponies to stop it.

I believe it will come down to turnover ratio. If we are anything worse than -2, we have the offense - but not the defense or consistent special teams play - to survive.

I'm going to agree with chip that if you want to narrow it down to THE key to the game, it's going to be turnover margin.

NM State: +2
Nor Col: +3
Houston: +1
UCLA: -5
Utah: -2
ASU: -3
CU: +2
UO: -2
Cal: -1
Stanford: +1

By my count, in our 5 wins, we were +9 in turnover margin. In our five losses, we were -13. If we take care of the ball, we will win the game.

 

[702coug]

Agree with Chip. In personally believe both teams have an equal amount of playmakers and talent. It's as simple as the team with the most turnovers loses. I'm predicting Harris gets a runback also. A lot of pressure on the Beavs to perform, not sure they can deliver.

 

[BleedCrimsonandGray]

I'm going to agree with chip that if you want to narrow it down to THE key to the game, it's going to be turnover margin.

NM State: +2
Nor Col: +3
Houston: +1
UCLA: -5
Utah: -2
ASU: -3
CU: +2
UO: -2
Cal: -1
Stanford: +1

By my count, in our 5 wins, we were +9 in turnover margin. In our five losses, we were -13. If we take care of the ball, we will win the game.

Its unrealistic/ improbable that we'll not turn over the ball over at all, which means the defense needs to either generate turnovers OR rely on the charity of the Beavers offense to make mistakes.

It is one area that I am looking forward to seeing significant growth as this defense grows is getting back to positive TO margin. At this point they aren't very good at ball hawking passes or ripping/punching the ball out. I suppose they have their hands full with simply being in position and not missing the tackle...

 

[32eekortS]

Agree with Chip. In personally believe both teams have an equal amount of playmakers and talent. It's as simple as the team with the most turnovers loses. I'm predicting Harris gets a runback also. A lot of pressure on the Beavs to perform, not sure they can deliver.

Disagree. I think both teams are even at QB. We have a great RB, they have 2 good RB’s. They have 1 WR. A good 1, but just 1. We are about 6 deep. Our offensive line is much better. Both defenses suck terribly.

 

[Flatlandcoug]

Its unrealistic/ improbable that we'll not turn over the ball over at all, which means the defense needs to either generate turnovers OR rely on the charity of the Beavers offense to make mistakes.

It is one area that I am looking forward to seeing significant growth as this defense grows is getting back to positive TO margin. At this point they aren't very good at ball hawking passes or ripping/punching the ball out. I suppose they have their hands full with simply being in position and not missing the tackle...

Don't get me wrong.....we may have turnovers, but if we want to win, it's clear that turnover margin is the key factor in making that happen.

 

[dgibbons]

I'm going to agree with chip that if you want to narrow it down to THE key to the game, it's going to be turnover margin.

NM State: +2
Nor Col: +3
Houston: +1
UCLA: -5
Utah: -2
ASU: -3
CU: +2
UO: -2
Cal: -1
Stanford: +1

By my count, in our 5 wins, we were +9 in turnover margin. In our five losses, we were -13. If we take care of the ball, we will win the game.

Take care of the ball, AND generate some takeaways.

 

[95coug]

Sure, you could come up with several responses to this. And I bet a lot of them would either involve the OSU offense or their D backs. But the view from my porthole says it will all be about the ability of the Beavs to mount a pass rush.

I actually bothered to watch the Beavs for the past couple of games, and at the risk of grossly over-simplifying things, here goes:

The Beavs don't get much of a pass rush without a blitz. I have no statistics to back me up, but it looks to me as though they probably blitz more than any other PAC team. You know the old saw...it was old when I learned it 50 years ago..."the team that lives by the blitz, dies by the blitz". The teams that had problems with the Beavs this year were by and large the teams that had O lines which were either weak or in injury turmoil and could not consistently pick up the blitz.

The Beavs played some pretty good games this year, including beating a couple (ASU & Cal) that beat us, so they aren't patsy material.

I think it will come down to Gordon's time to throw and the OL's ability to pick up the blitz.

Agree or disagree?

Hamilcar Rashed (LB) has 14 sacks for the Beavers, tied for most in the nation. The rest of the Beaver defense combined has 15. His sacks seem to come mostly against the teams with poor offenses (none against Utah, UW, or OK State, 3 against Arizona/Cal, 2 ASU/Stanford/Cal Poly, 1 UCLA/Hawaii) but someone has got to pick him up. He's also their #2 tackler.

Someone has to be all over Isaiah Hodgins. He accounts for over 1/3 of their receptions, and almost half of their passing yards. He's not quite the key to their offense (they've won when he didn't produce much) but he's a big piece. Limit his touches, don't let him go long.

A major key will be our defense's ability to control their run game on 1st & 2nd down. They are pretty good on 3rd down, so we have to force them into longer conversions and get them off the field. They convert 44% on the season, we need that to be more like 35% or less. That's a tall order, our D allows opponents to convert 43.8%, so they need to step it up.

On the flip side, we convert barely 40% on the season - and that's padded by our 69% against Stanford. We have to get good yards on those first two downs (enter Borghi) and avoid the 3rd & long situations that kill us. Part of that will be avoiding the penalties that have seemed to plague us all season, but were mercifully absent last week. The other thing there is that Rashed is more likely to come on the blitz on 3rd & 8+ than he is on 3rd & 2. Anyway, our conversion rate needs to be north of 50%. That shouldn't be as tall an order, OSU allows 46.3% conversions (Stanford was allowing 44% before last week).

Our defenses are pretty similar overall - bad. Their run D gives up more per game, less per carry. Their pass D gives up fewer yards per game and per completion, and a slightly lower completion rate, but gives up more TDs and gets fewer picks.

We get way more passing yards, they get more rushing. They take care of the ball better, we protect the QB better.

On paper, I think our offense outpaces theirs for the win. On the field, our defense is going to have to create some distance between us by getting them off the field...or at least giving up 3 instead of 6. We don't want to have to rely on getting a turnover in the last 5 minutes.

 

[cr8zyncalif]

I agree regarding turnover margin; but I suspect that picking up the blitz and giving Gordon time will be a big part of keeping the turnover margin where we want it to be.

 

[95coug]

I agree regarding turnover margin; but I suspect that picking up the blitz and giving Gordon time will be a big part of keeping the turnover margin where we want it to be.

I’m not really with you guys on the turnover margin. We’re not likely to win that battle against OSU, they take care of it too well. They’ve faced defenses a lot better than ours and not turned it over.
To be clear, we can’t be -3. But if we can keep it even or -1, I think we can overcome that. -2 makes it a lot harder to come out on top. More than that, we’re screwed.

 

[Flatlandcoug]

I’m not really with you guys on the turnover margin. We’re not likely to win that battle against OSU, they take care of it too well. They’ve faced defenses a lot better than ours and not turned it over.
To be clear, we can’t be -3. But if we can keep it even or -1, I think we can overcome that. -2 makes it a lot harder to come out on top. More than that, we’re screwed.

Because OSU has been pretty solid in turnover margin, you are correct that we might not be in the positive for the game. Agree with you thought that we can win with one more turnover than them. With our defense, more than that is an issue. Agree with the comment above that picking up blitzes and keeping Gordon as clean as possible is a key component of that turnover margin staying favorable.

 

[ShockandAweWSU]

Pressure Luton and we win.

 

[CougInSpain]

Pressure Luton and we win.

This. Right. Here. If you look at the games where we got pressure to the QB on obvious passing downs, we were able to disrupt the play regularly. ESPECIALLY on 3rd and long situations. We can't just rush three or 4 giving them all day to throw. Luton will pick our secondary apart collecting big chunks of yards in the process. Luton is not very mobile so the more heat we can put on him, the better our chances will be in limiting their offensive production.

 

[BleedCrimsonandGray]

This. Right. Here. If you look at the games where we got pressure to the QB on obvious passing downs, we were able to disrupt the play regularly. ESPECIALLY on 3rd and long situations. We can't just rush three or 4 giving them all day to throw. Luton will pick our secondary apart collecting big chunks of yards in the process. Luton is not very mobile so the more heat we can put on him, the better our chances will be in limiting their offensive production.

agreed.

We give up chunk yardage anyway, so might as well maximize the chance to make a positive play and send 5 or 6 people regularly.

 

[kougkurt]

agreed.

We give up chunk yardage anyway, so might as well maximize the chance to make a positive play and send 5 or 6 people regularly.

They will kill us with screens and draws. Must be disciplined.

 

[BleedCrimsonandGray]

They will kill us with screens and draws. Must be disciplined.

We. Give. Up. Chunk. Yardage. Anyways.

If its not screens and draws, it'll be over the top. Or up the gut. Or anyway they want.

Besides, I've been impressed by the D's ability to sniff out the screen pass, of all the crazy things they actually do seem to do well.

Yes, don't blitz every single down, but I would say more often than not. But again, that would only be if it is effective at creating pressure. AND if we get a lead and put them in catch-up mode.

 

[cr8zyncalif]

Gotta agree on the screen pass identification. Sure, there have been some successful screens...but we've blown up a lot more.

 

[kougkurt]

Gotta agree on the screen pass identification. Sure, there have been some successful screens...but we've blown up a lot more.

I feel we’ve been better on WR screens. RB screens, not so much.