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Washington State Cougars @ Oregon State Beavers Football Recap

Washington State 31, Oregon State 14

The Oregon State Beavers took the field as 23-point favorites. They left their home ballpark, Reser Stadium, as 17-point losers. It’s been that bad a season for a program that has spent most of the past decade overachieving more than just about any other school in the country. In 2010, though, the buzzword for Oregon State is “collapse.” Without injured receiver James Rodgers, a team that played Boise State with an appreciable degree of competitiveness on Sept. 25 has experienced a tailspin since then.

Oregon State beat Arizona, 29-27, the week after its bold battle with Boise, but Rodgers – the older brother of running back Jacquizz Rodgers – was cut down in that contest with a season-ending injury. Then the nosedive began. OSU lost at Washington, currently a 3-6 team. The Beavers then dropped a decision to UCLA, another sub-.500 club on the West Coast. Now, though, OSU has earned the dubious distinction of giving Washington State its first Pac-10 win since November of 2008, and the program’s only road win in the conference under third-year coach Paul Wulff. Full credit should be given to a Wazzu crew that has never stopped competing in 2010, but the cold hard facts demand that Oregon State – even without the older Rodgers brother – be held to account for this awful performance at home in Corvallis.

The moment which encapsulated OSU’s futility this year came midway through the fourth quarter of this contest. With 8:30 left, Beaver coach Mike Riley – who has been so beautifully bold with his gameday decisions over the years (for example, he went for two points and the win against Missouri in the 2006 Sun Bowl, and succeeded) – showed why this season has not acquired the same happy trajectory in his neck of the woods.

Oregon State trailed WSU by 10 points, 24-14. The Beavers faced a fourth-and-10 at their own 40. With possessions at a premium, teams are simply not in a position where they can afford to punt the ball under such circumstances. A two-score deficit does not allow for that. An opponent’s offense can and will still chew a couple minutes off the clock, even on a three-and-out. Riley had to realize this, but for some reason, he went ahead and punted. Washington State did give the ball back before too long, but OSU was still deprived of more than a minute of game time, and when panicky quarterback Ryan Katz – who has completely lost control of this offense, not to mention his leadership role on the Beavers – zinged a few more incomplete passes out of bounds, the Beavers were done. Riley’s decision to concede a possession on fourth down applied only more pressure to his struggling quarterback because it made him think that he might have only three plays, not four, in which to gain a first down. Katz pressed throughout this game, and that was a core reason why Washington State pulled away to win by 17.

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Now, Oregon State – a Pac-10 title contender at the beginning of the year – will be hard pressed to make a bowl. The Beavers must beat USC and then split against Stanford and Oregon to reach the postseason. No one thought OSU would face this kind of mountain after the 13th day of November.

Moreover, no one thought that Washington State would break its Pac-10 winless streaks – its overall schneid and its road skid – in Corvallis, Oregon, of all places.

By Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer