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With the Oregon State football team (4-3) falling to UNLV (6-1) 33-25 on Saturday night, BeaversEdge gives five important takeaways from the loss...
1. Late Comeback Too Little, Too Late
The Beavers had some late-game heroics at the end of the fourth quarter to try and keep within striking distance of UNLV, but the comeback was just too little, too late.
Bottom line… Oregon State shouldn’t have needed to have been in that position without the self-inflicted mistakes.
It looked like the Rebels had the game all but won up 33-17, but an Anthony Hankerson rushing TD and two-point conversion helped the Beavers bring the game to an eight-point UNLV lead with 2:14 remaining in the fourth quarter.
Then, it looked like UNLV would ride out the victory smoothly, only having to pick up a couple of first downs to run out the clock. However, a key interception from Jack Kane gave the Beavers a last-ditch effort to send the game to overtime.
The final drive for the Beavers ultimately proved futile in the end, where you have to force overtime in a period where you may not necessarily be guaranteed to win that game, given how the offense and defense fell apart in the second half.
That final drive, along with the blocked punt against Josh Green and the turnover by Anthony Hankerson, proved to be big moments in the loss to UNLV.
The sequence of plays leading up to the final drive:
- Gevani McCoy four-yard pass to Darrius Clemons
- McCoy nine-yard pass to Clemons
- McCoy three-yard rush
- Timeout
- McCoy pass incomplete to Jermaine Terry
- McCoy 15-yard pass to Jermaine Terry
- McCoy pass complete to Hankerson for two yards
- Timeout McCoy sacked for a five-yard loss
- McCoy pass complete to Trent Walker for nine yards
- McCoy 11 yard pass complete to Terry
- McCoy pass incomplete to Terry
While those plays won’t make the entire difference in this game, along with the non-call pass interference against Jermaine Terry in the back of the endzone, Oregon State should have never been in this position from the beginning, given how they performed in the first half.
The non-call didn’t decide the game; no one penalty does that for a team, but if you can’t get out of your own way on both sides of the ball, then it’s tough to win football games.
Oregon State was lucky to win against Colorado State, and despite all the self-inflicted mistakes in that game, lightning didn’t strike twice for the Beavers this time around.
2. Leaky Defense Better At Home, But Still A Liability With Injuries & Inexperience
Just a week after allowing 400 total yards and 42 points to Nevada, the Oregon State defense played better at home as expected, but still ended up allowing 33 points and 384 total yards to the UNLV Rebels on Saturday night.
With the injuries the Beavers have had on the defensive side of the ball, it’s hard to know what sort of internal improvement the team can make in a week, but for what it’s worth, it was a better showing than we saw in Reno a week ago.
While Oregon State’s offense was undoubtedly better against the Wolfpack, the defense was better against the Rebels, as the Beavers were a far cry from the pushover that allowed Nevada to run all over the field on them.
Case in point with rushing yards: Nevada had over 380, while UNLV managed just 188 against the Beavers. While some of that is that UNLV was able to hit some passing plays compared to Nevada, which wasn’t able to, some of it was certainly the Beaver defense having a much better pulse compared to last week.
The much-maligned run defense looked rough early on, allowing over 80 rushing yards to the Rebels on their opening drive. From there, the Beavers allowed just a little over 100 yards, as UNLV finished with 188 on the day. In terms of a glass-half-full positive, that’s a solid takeaway, as the Rebels run the ball far better than the Wolfpack; the Beavers were just in better positions today.
The Beavers need to prepare better for mobile quarterbacks, as Hajj-Malik Williams was the Rebels’ leading rusher, with 65 yards and two touchdowns just a week after Brendon Lewis ran wild from the QB spot.
Mobile quarterbacks are always difficult to deal with, but the Beavers have been torched by these two guys in recent weeks. Even going back to Dillon Gabriel earlier in the season, this defense has had a real weakness.
The craziest part is that if the Beavers had allowed 33 points last week, they would have left Reno winners. Yet this week, the defense took a step forward and the offense backward, hence the losing result.
Overall, some improvements were made on the defensive side of the ball, and it’s a big reason the Beavers were able to stay in this game for as long as they ultimately did…
The injuries are what they are, and every team is dealing with them, but when you add in the group's inexperience, there is going to be hot and cold play, and we’ve seen that play out over the past few weeks…
