SB Nation - Jeremy Francis

What the Hekker? Initial thoughts on OSU's 3-0 Sun Bowl victory

Jake Bertalotto — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 04:08:27 -0000

In what resembled a MLB game, or a bad hockey game, or a soccer game, or a 2nd grade youth basketball game, the Beavers beat Pittsburgh 3-0 in the 75th Brut Sun Bowl.

The last time Oregon State won 3-0 was against USC in 1967.

The Trojans came to town with O.J. Simpson, with everyone assuming that the Beavers would just be another featherweight in the path of USC claiming the national championship and going undefeated.

In that game, it all boiled down to a second-quarter field goal by Oregon State kicker Mike Haggard. Of his three attempts, a 30-yarder with 5:18 left before halftime was the only one he made.

In the 2008 Sun Bowl, Justin Kahut (now pronounced kay-HUT, by the way) made a field goal with 2:18 left in the first half.

The similarities between the two games are quite interesting.

"The whole game I didn't think that field goal would hold up," then-OSU coach Dee Andros said of the 1967 game in an interview with The Oregonian years later. "The conditions didn't bother O.J. a bit, and it was just a well-played defensive game by both teams."

Oregon State won the Sun Bowl due in a large part to their defense, which held LeSean McCoy to 78 yards on 24 carries in the game.

My schedule didn't allow for me to watch the game live, so I had to resort to watching the game off of my DVR several hours later. I will now spew out my thoughts stream-of-consciousness style, so I apologize in advance for poor grammar and anything that is unclear.

Offense: Coming into the game, we knew we would have to rely heavily on the passing game. Without Jacquizz being effective, the Beavers offense isn't the same. I had an inking that it could turn into a game where we throw the ball 50+ times, but after I watched Lyle throw his first pass of the game not even close to intended receiver Ryan McCants, I knew we were in for a long game.

I didn't think Lyle played particular well, but I know the wind was a large factor. There were a number of passes in which our receivers were wide open and had to make diving catches, negating yards after the catch, but Lyle has been doing that in almost every game this season.

We really needed our running backs to step up, and I thought they did fairly well. Nothing spectacular, but I don't think we expected a tremendous performance from either McCants or Francis. Like Lyle's incompletion that I was talking about above, another bad omen that came at the beginning of the game was McCants' fumble on his first carry. All in all, 99 yards between McCants and Francis isn't bad. This game was clearly a defensive battle, and Pitt's defense played well. That being said, Oregon State misfired a bunch-- twice, the Beavers took the ball inside Pitt's ten yard line and came away with no points.

Defense: The defense clearly won this game for us. Coming into the game, I thought that it would be very difficult to hold Pittsburgh to zero points. I seemed to think that Pitt would score several touchdowns even if we played great defense, and our offense would have to score to win the game. However, it worked the opposite way, and Oregon State won by keeping Pittsburgh out of the end zone.

Our defensive line was outstanding. Victor Butler, Slade Norris, and Stephen Paea all did a great job of leading the defense in dominating Pitt's offensive line all game. And when Pittsburgh did try to throw the ball, OSU's secondary stepped up. Pitt QB Bill Stull only completed (correction... 7) of 24 passes for 52 yards, and when he got hurt, backup QB Pat Bostick completed two passes for 37 yards. Both of Bostick's completions came on the final Pitt drive when the Panthers needed to get into field goal position to attempt a field goal to tie.

Thinking back on the game, I can only remember one time that Al Afalava was involved on a tackle. The box score indicates that he had one solo tackle and one assisted tackle, but I can only remember him tackling LeSean McCoy late in the game. Really, it seemed like our front seven just stuffed Pitt's rushing attack to the point that the secondary didn't have to make many tackles.

Special Teams: The game wouldn't have gone the same way it did without the performance of the defense, but our special teams were outstanding as well. For Hekker to punt the ball ten times and average 45 yards is phenomenal, especially considering where he was at the beginning of the season. And he was drilling kicks into the wind. Punting wasn't a liability today, it was an asset.

We can't end this conversation without talking about Kahut, who made the eventual game-winning kick in the second quarter. And also, kudos goes to Taylor Kavanaugh, who got the snap down after bobbling the football. Even if Kahut did kick the laces, it showed how disciplined the Perry-Kavanaugh-Kahut combination is.

Anything else I forgot? Chime in below.

GO BEAVERS!

(Sorry buthol, "What the Hekker" was too good to pass on.)

--Jake (jake.buildingthedam@gmail.com)

A look over the offensive numbers

Jake Bertalotto — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 15:45:05 -0000

Have you come crashing down from your post-Beaver-victory high yet?

Team Offense: 17 first downs, 166 rushing yards, 224 passing yards, 390 total yards, 0 turnovers, 6.0 yards per play.

Sean Canfield: 20/32, 224 yards, 1 TD

I thought Sean played a great good enough game, especially in the second half when it mattered. He got off to a slow start, and still was off target on a few balls, but for the most part, he did what he needed to do. There was the one brutal pass in which he sidestepped an Arizona defensive lineman like a matador, then heaved a wobbly spiral into the heart of the Arizona secondary. It all worked out in the end, but he got extremely lucky.

I liked Canfield's ability to go downfield in the game. The pass to James that was dropped was right on the money. The deep bomb to Sammie down the sideline was underthrown, but that might have been beneficial to the Beavs. If Sean hits Sammie in stride, he walks into the end zone and the Beavers score with 0:40 on the clock. And then we must play defense to prevent a touchdown, a la Utah, a la ASU.

James Rodgers: 10 rushes, 102 yards, 1 TD. 2 catches, 9 yards.

A 41 yard touchdown reception would have made James' line look that much better, but we definitely need to stop talking about that. The fly sweep was resurrected tonight in Tucson, just in time for us to torture the UO secondary with it next week. This was good to see, because teams have done a pretty good job of shutting down the fly sweep this season. Perhaps they're finding ways to stop it, but stopping both Rodgers seems to be what teams are struggling with. For most of the game, Arizona only had one Rodgers to stop, and they couldn't even do that.

Sammie "TNT" Stroughter: 5 catches, 116 yards.

Okay, so maybe the nickname won't stick. But I loved how pumped up Sammie got after making the 47 yard catch that set the Beavers up to win the game. That catch was huge, but equally as important was the 4 yard slant pattern that he turned into a 34 yard gain (on third down) after gravity robbed James Rodgers of a touchdown on the play prior. That set the Beavers up for a touchdown, which Sammie caught amidst a swarm of Wildcats in the end zone. The Versus angle didn't really show what Sammie did to get open, but have you ever seen The Matrix? I'm just sayin'. The line of scrimmage was the seven yard line, and judging by how much time elapsed while Sean rolled out to his left, one would think it would be difficult to hide from defenders contained in such a small space.

Ryan McCantsStopTheBeavers: 15 rushes, 54 yards.

I was generally impressed with Ryan. It seems like he had phases of effectiveness when he was getting 2-4 extra yards per carry, sort of like Quizz does on a regular basis. And then there were times where he rumbled for a ton of extra yards with guys all over him. But there were also times when I felt like he couldn't get out of the backfield, and if he did, he was underachieving by not scrapping for extra yards. It's nice to know that we have a nice back to complement Quizz (a change of pace, per se), but it's also nice to know that he can makes some things happen on his own.

Jeremy Francis: 1 rush, 2 yards. 7 catches, 61 yards, 1 awesome lateral.

It never really struck me until tonight how much Francis looks like Yvenson Bernard. There was a point in the game (it was the play where he got lit up by a UA defender) where I seriously did a double take becasue I thought it was Bernard making a catch. I think it's the hair...

Great job by Francis, especially in the closing minutes of the game when he picked up the first 25 yards of Oregon State's game-winning drive. I present the unsung play of the game award to Francis for the heads up move to lateral the ball to James Rodgers on the ball he caught over the middle- I don't want to think about what would have happened had we not stopped the clock there.

Jacquizz Rodgers: 4 rushes, 20 yards

Watching the first quarter replay off my DVR reminded me of just how good this guy is. He only rushed the ball four times before he exited due to injury on a pass, (Remember his quote, coach Riley? He said "I don't get happy, I just run the ball". If it's not runnin' the ball, Quizz doesn't do it. So don't throw the ball to him anymore!) but they were good runs. Especially the nine yarder. Not the best, I realize, but watching those replays made me want more Quizz! Heal it up this week, buddy!

And how about the beard Langsdorf has accumulated, too sexy?

Brett Favre discusses his newest Wranglers commercial and the benefits of wearing jeans while playing touch football

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