3 things to look for in Oregon State's Saturday Showcase

With the Oregon State Football team set to head north to Mountainside High School in Beaverton on Saturday for the Dam City Showcase, BeaversEdge.com senior writer Brenden Slaughter gives three things to look for in the Beavers' first official scrimmage of spring.

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As the Oregon State Football team inches closer to its first official scrimmage of the 2019 campaign, it will be interesting to see how well the Beaver faithful show out in Beaverton on Saturday. While the weather conditions don't figure to be quite as sunny and dry as last year, it's a rare opportunity for the Portland-area Oregon State fans to get an up-close, local look at this year's squad.

With only the Dam City Showcase on Saturday and the spring game, this weekend marks just one of the two times that an Oregon State football practice/scrimmage will be open to the public until at least the middle of August.

Despite finishing 2-10 a season ago, Oregon State has shown signs of improvement during spring on both sides of the ball and now they'll look to put it all together over the next two Saturdays. The Beavers still have a long ways to go to get to where they need to be, but the spring plays an important role in development and execution come September.

Throughout Jonathan Smith's tenure at Oregon State, the Beavers have regularly embraced practicing outside rain or shine to get the full complement of what mother nature can provide in Oregon. Saturday will be no different as the Beavers will load up their caravan of buses from the Valley Football Center to Mountainside and will carry on business as usual even if the weather is coming down in buckets.

Between the first scrimmage of the season and some fun weather expected, Saturday should make for a fun, interesting, and exciting day of football.

While the Beavers are expected to divide practice up between individual drills and live 11-on-11 scrimmaging as they did in Beaverton a year ago, we're going to learn a lot about how much the team has improved.

Depending on how much live scrimmaging the Beavers do on Saturday, it could be a big day for the Beavers as the fans and the media will be able to get a look at just how much better the team has improved in the offseason.

Increased chemistry, better understanding of the playbook and schemes, crisper execution, and sound tackling are what I'd expect to see from the Beavers on Saturday.

The other side to this coin is that Saturday's scrimmage could also be a tune-up of sorts for the spring game on April 20th. With the Beavers having several players in multiple positions that are a little banged up, OSU might opt for a lighter 11-on-11 workload on Saturday and try to go all out for the spring game.

In either case, the Beavers will have a scrimmage and we'll get to see who's going to rise to the occasion and show out in what's likely to be a very wet spring day on Saturday.

One of the position battles that I'm excited to see on Saturday is the offensive line against the defensive line. Both groups were challenged by their respective position coaches and coordinators to take ownership of the poor play at the point of attack last season and both will certainly be looking to make a statement in their first scrimmage in front of a live audience.

While the offensive line is still looking from consistency from a relatively new group up front outside of Blake Brandel and Gus Lavaka, the defensive line now boasts experience and depth. With Isaac Hodgins, Elu Adyon, and Lamone Williams looking like veteran leaders and the anchors up front, it's going to be interesting to see who wins the battle up front.

With both position groups also trying to heavily involve newcomers in the various first, second, and third team units, keeping an eye on the backups is going to be key as well. Oregon State was particularly porous on the defensive line last season because of inexperience and lack of depth. Now that they've got depth and more experience from top-to-bottom, I'd like to see the Beaver defensive line make a statement against an offensive line that is still finding its footing.