SB Nation - Johnny Hekker

BYU Manhandles Oregon State 44-20

Jeremy Mauss — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 06:33:58 -0000

More photos » by Daniel Gluskoter - AP

Final - 12.22.2009	1	2	3	4	Total
Oregon St. Beavers	7	0	0	13	20
BYU Cougars	14	9	7	14	44

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Do not let the score fool anyone this was more of a blowout then the 24 point BYU victory. To break it down even further the game was won by BYU and then the wind edge out Oregon State as well in this game. Yes the wind was terrible and saw the net that catches the field goals get tangled up and the sky cam removed, but that was not the reason Oregon State loss. Neither was the fact that this was a let down for just missing out on the Rose Bowl.

The first drive of the game Oregon State was buzzing along and scored nearly at will on a four play 37 yard drive to open up the scoring. Then BYU went on a 30-0 run to bust open the game, but prior to that BYU tied the game on a methodical drive of 14 plays, 84 yards, and lasted six minutes. Then on Oregon State's next possession they fumbled the ball and BYU returned it for a score and then proceeded to punt and BYU had another drive of nearly six minutes for a field goal. Before Oregon State could do much they were down 17-3, and then 23-7 at the half while controlling the ball for approximately 18 minutes of the first thirty.

Oregon State's receiver James Rodgers had zero first half touches which is just another reason why Oregon State was done early, but more so do to their mediocre defense that allowed BYU to do as they wish on offense. By the time anyone from Oregon State was able to do anything the game was over as BYU lead 37-7 before Oregon State put some more points on the board.

Field position played a huge roll in this game as the wind was just going crazy through out the entire game. The Beavers were having problems punting the ball and their punter had four kicks for a total of 104 yards but had a long of 64. Take away that 64 yarder and that changes things drastically with three points at 40 yards or 13.3 yards per punt. Besides that 64 yarder Johnny Hekker had punts of 28, 6, and 6; that is right two punts under ten yards.

The short punts were great to watch as one did an extreme right hand turn to go out of bounds and then another started off as a decent kick but then hit an imaginary wall and then started going backwards. Passing was wacky as well with wounded ducks and non spirals going everywhere.

So, the question to be asked about the Pac-10 was the league full of parity or just mediocre teams? More will be answered tomorrow once Utah plays Cal, but it is looking more along the lines of mediocrity for the Pac-10. BYU crushed a team that was so close to going to the Rose Bowl, Utah nearly beat the Pac-10 champs Oregon, and besides USC's win over Ohio State the next best win from the Pac-10 was a victory over actually the Oregon win over Utah. Arizona did beat Central Michigan which would be the leagues third best win.

The Mountain West is now 2-0 in bowl games and is looking to become 3-0 once Utah takes on Cal tomorrow night.

Looking ahead to Oregon State

John Berkowitz — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:21:25 -0000

More photos » by Greg Wahl-Stephens - AP

about 1 month ago: Oregon State's James Rodgers (8) runs in the winning touchdown against UCLA during the final seconds of the second half of NCAA college football in Corvallis, Ore., Saturday Oct 31, 2009. Oregon State beat UCLA 26-19. (AP Photo/Greg Wahl-Stephens)

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Washington's post season hopes are hanging by a thread going into this encounter witht he Oregon State Beavers. Like all Mike Riley teams this squad keeps improving each week and most importantly keeps winning games. Last week it was on the road against Cal and this week it will be at home against Washington.

The Beavers are 4-2 in the Pac 10 race and 6-3 on the season. The losses were to Cincinnati, Arizona, and USC. Left on their slate is Washington, WSU, and Oregon so a finish as high as 9-3 is very possible this season. Even with only two losses the Rose bowl is unlikely. USC would have to lose one more time, Arizona would have to lose twice, and of course they would have to beat the hated Ducks.

The Beavers aren't what I would call a dominant team going into this one but Washington on paper doesn't match up well with these guys. Offensively the Beavers have a lot of firepower with the Rodgers brothers and Sean Canfield. Washington's defense hasn't been able to stop anyone lately and the Beavers sport one of the more explosive offenses in the Pac 10. The top passing team in the Pac 10 isn't a great match for a team ranked 7th in passing defense.

The Beavers lead the conference in passing averaging 279 ypg and balance it out with an average of 131 ypg on the ground. Jacquizz Rodgers averages 109 ypg which isn't that eye popping. What is eye popping is his 15 TD's this season which leads the league. The hidden ingredient in the Beaver's overall stats is all purpose yards. James Rodgers leads the league with an average of 179 ypg! Washington needs to be very careful when they kick the ball in James Rodgers direction.

Defensively the Beavers started the season young and challenged but the front seven has matured enough to start putting pressure on opposing QB's. The defensive backfield is still susceptible to giving up some big yards if you can get time to throw the ball. The Beavs give up an average of 264 ypg through the air and only 100 on the ground.

If Washington is going to pull off the upset they need to be able to run the ball to set up the pass. Chris Polk picked up 134 yards against UCLA on 15 carries. Coach Sarkisian says that when teams aren't expecting the run UW does fine. When teams are looking for the run the Huskies tend to get stuffed which has contributed to the problems scoring in the red zone this season. Washington needs to run the ball better to beat OSU.

Washington also needs to win the special teams battle in this game to have chance to win. James Johnson provided some spark to the return unit against UCLA which is something the staff has been looking for all season. The key in this one is containing James Rodgers on kick and punt returns. Washington can't allow him to get loose.

Jake Locker hasn't had a great game in some time. He is going to need one if Washington is going to have any chance of beating the Beavers in Corvallis. The quad bruise limited his mobility last week even though Sark called a few designed runs for him. Jake was still fast but you could tell he was running a little choppy. Another week of treatment in the training room should help with that.

Jake needs to take advantage of a Beaver secondary that has a propensity for being burned. The Beavs have some fast athletes back there so it isn't like he is going up against a bunch of stiffs. It is just a young secondary that is learning every game. Jake needs to take advantage of their mistakes. Despite the inexperience back there the Beavers play quit a bit man to man coverage. The Washington receivers need to expoit that early and make Oregon State play from behind.

Game Notes

Reggie Davis the Beavers’ first-year running backs coach, is a former Husky tight end and UW graduate.

Oregon State’s current roster includes 11 players that graduated from Washington high schools: PK Matt Barker (Sprague/Gonzaga Prep), OL Grant Enger (Seattle/O’Dea), TE Joe Halahuni (Orting), WR Garett Hall (Olympia), P Johnny Hekker (Bothell), OL, Colin Kelly (Kelso), C Alex Linnenkohl (Olympia/Capital), WR Geno Munoz (Tacoma/Mt. Tahoma), RB Dylan Parsons (Olympia), S Anthony (Burien/Highline) and CB Brian Watkins (Burien/Highline).

Washington leads the overall series with Oregon State 57-32-4.

The teams first met on Dec. 4, 1897, with Oregon State earning a 16-0 home win.

Wild Beaver Wins Quizz Pac-10, National Player of Week Honors

AndyPanda — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 22:45:30 -0000

Oregon St. offensive coordinator Danny Langsdorf brought the "Wild Beaver" out of the lab, and it sparked a performance by a determined Jacquizz Rodgers that earned the Pac-10 Offensive Player of the Week honor, and also the Rivals.com national player of the week award.

Starting with a 61 yard gain on the Beavers' opening drive, the formation produced positive results throughout the game, and led to a career night for Jacquizz, who ran for an Oregon St. record tieing 4 touchdowns, and 189 yards. Quizz also led the Beavers with 82 yards receiving, which was four yards short of making him the game's leading receiver.

Quizz's 4 touchdowns tied him with Pete Pfeifer, Bill "Earthquake" Enyart, Ken Simonton, and Steven Jackson for the Beavers' game high in rushing touchdown production. (Jackson's 5 touchdown Las Vegas bowl performance, with one receiving, is still the overall record.)

"People been talking bad about me in the papers, man," Rodgers said after the game. "They say, ‘Quizz hasn't rushed over 100 yards in three games,' so I took that personal."

Jacquizz Rodgers found running lanes from the 'Wild Beaver' set.

In the showdown of running backs with Stanford's Toby Gerhart, ‘Quizz more than doubled the total production of the Cardinal's star power back. Not that Gerhart had a bad game, but his 96 yards rushing was well below his above-130 yards per game average coming in, a tribute not only to the Oregon St. rush defense which gave Gerhart very few open holes, but to the offense as well.

Oregon St. scored on all five first half possessions, taking leads of 21-0 and 31-7. Jumping far ahead early quickly forced Stanford at least partially away from being able to run Gerhart as much as they would have had the score been reversed. Coming into the Oregon St. game, the Cardinal had only trailed for a total of 4:42 all season. The Beavers added 55:11 to that total in the course of their 38-28 victory.

The performance also fulfilled one of Coach Mike Riley's objectives, in light of the deserved national build up for Gerhart coming into the game.

"Oregon St. wanted to remind everyone that Jacquizz Rodgers is a pretty good running back too."

Jacquizz Rodgers scored touchdowns on each of the Beavers' first three possessions against Stanford.

The Pac-10 player of the week honor had to have made for a happy Mom Rodgers too, coming on the heels of James Rodgers being named the Pac-10 player of the week last week against Arizona St. James has another decent night too, with 146 all-purpose yards, and a touchdown.

The strong offensive effort doesn't stop with the Rodgers brothers either, as Sean Canfield turned in his second consecutive strong performance. Canfield completed 22 of 32 passes, to seven different receivers, for 290 yards, and the touchdown to James. Canfield did suffer three sacks, but no interceptions, and more importantly, made very few poor decisions.

BTD, along with many others, were critical of Canfield after a couple of poor performances, especially against Arizona. To his credit, the senior has responded to a situation that demanded a marked improvement, or his replacement.

After the clutch performance in Tempe, the Beavers' field general looked like one, being at once confident and relaxed Saturday, actually seemingly looking forward to attacking the Stanford defense.

Defensive Coordinator Mark Banker and his portion of the staff have also made good progress with the young Beaver defense, but the bye couldn't have come at a better time. It will be interesting to see how much improvement is made by the time the Beavers travel to the LA Coliseum in two weeks to take on the USC Trojans, because there's no doubt the Oregon St. pass defense still has a lot of work to do.

How different might the game Saturday have gone if Stanford's Chris Owusu hadn't dropped a sure touchdown on the Cardinal's first play?

Still, the Beaver defense held Cardinal freshman quarterback Andrew Luck to 12 completions out of 30 attempts, and Luck didn't complete a pass until the middle of the second quarter.

Especially early, Luck looked like a quarterback who still hasn't won a road game. Several passes were "good" throws mechanically, and "good" decisions as far as who to throw to, but were off target. Even the Owusu drop was an underthrow that contributed to the drop.

Still, the 91 and 99 yard fourth quarter scoring drives Stanford mounted, especially on the heels of the Cardinal 83 yard third quarter scoring drive, continues a disturbing trend. Admittedly the Beavers were playing clock ball as soon as halftime was over, but for five straight weeks, the Oregon St. defense, which only managed to sack Luck once, has given up one or more long, sustained scoring drives, with the game still in doubt. Most distressing, the Beavers haven't appeared to have a chance of stopping many of these drives.

Whether this is mostly a product of the defense wearing down, or not countering the adjustments made by the opponent, or a combination, is difficult to judge. But if the Beavers' two game winning streak, forged against less than the best offenses the conference has to offer, is to continue, this is the area that most needs to improve before the mid-season break is over.

Individual great plays were turned in that broke up several plays, but sustained shut down defense is still a ways away.

Special teams, by contrast, continue to be outstanding. In a game where winning the special teams battle may have been even more important that the battle of the all-conference running backs, the Beavers excelled.

In addition to James' Rodgers' returns, Johnny Hekker, who averaged 46 yards per punt, and Justin Kahut, who was perfect on place kicks, effectively kept Owusu, one of the nation's best kick returners, starting in corners. Owusu, who has already this season taken three kicks back for touchdowns, was held to 87 yards on five returns, an average of 17.4 yards, far less than half his season average. And a longest return of 22 yards.

Stanford's Chris Owusu (81) found little room to run against the Oregon St. kick coverage.

The game, played on a beautiful autumn afternoon, was the third game to fall just shy of the 42,000 attendance mark this season, and the first home game not to be at least for a while, the 15^th. largest in Reser stadium history. 41,979 fans showed up, leaving this the 16^th. biggest crowd ever in Corvallis. Interestingly, the attendance has only varied 440 from the season low against Portland St. to the high against Arizona.

What it will take to get that last 4,000 or so to show is anyone's guess, as winning football, close games, good weather, a ranked opponent, and even a conference leading foe, have all proven to not be interesting enough to draw the fans that filled out Reser last season.

The student core continues to be the strength of support, as the "Sea of Orange" again made themselves heard Saturday.

And no game report on a contest with Stanford would be complete without acknowledging the presence of the rather unique Stanford band, a noisy group, apparently now led by McGruff the Band Mutt?

In the end though, the oldest band in the Pac-10 got to play their fight song last.

Despite the need for further improvement on defense, and especially because not just Quizz, but the entire offense again showed improvement, the general consensus was still clearly, that it was a great day to be a Beaver.