5 Takeaways From Oregon State's Loss To Utah

PROMO: Join BeaversEdge.com and get 30 DAYS FREE!

With the Oregon State football team (3-2, 0-2 Pac-12) falling to No. 12 Utah (4-1, 2-0 Pac-12) 42-16 on Saturday afternoon, BeaversEdge gives five important takeaways from the loss...

MORE: The 3-2-1: Oregon State Falls To 0-2 In Pac-12 | WATCH: OSU Talks Utah Loss

For the second straight week, turnovers were an absolute killer for Oregon State.

After having four turnovers while forcing none against USC a week ago, the Beavers committed four turnovers while forcing none against the Utes in another losing effort this week.

The miscues started early for the Beavers as Chance Nolan was intercepted on his second throw of the contest, which quickly turned into seven points for the Utes.

The Beavers then bounced back on the following drive, choosing to only throw one time on a seven-play touchdown drive (Silas Bolden run) that evened the contest. OSU's defense then forced a three and out only for Nolan to throw a pick-six on the following series. Backup quarterback Ben Gulbranson also had a pair of interceptions as well, bringing OSU's total on the day to four, just as many as last week against USC.

If you take away Oregon State's four turnovers and Utah's 21 points off of them, all of a sudden you have a 21-16 contest where the game is entirely different. That many points off turnovers are untenable when trying to pull an upset of a top-15 team on the road and the Beavers beat themselves for the second straight week.

For having such a veteran group that prides itself on having great leadership, the Beavers' play in the first two weeks of Pac-12 play has been sloppy and inefficient.

The offense takes most of the blame as the defense played extremely well against USC and relatively well against the Utes, but there's no question all three phases haven't been working in harmony for this football team since the start of conference play.

Through two Pac-12 contests, it's become increasingly clear that the Beavers are going to need far better quarterback play to win games in the Pac-12 this season.

While Chance Nolan has proven capable of winning games (10-9 overall as a starter at OSU), his play the past two weeks has been erratic and a big reason why two winnable contests ended up as losses.

Since Jonathan Smith and offensive coordinator Brian Lindgren arrived in 2018, the lack of a true difference-maker under center has continued to rear its head. Guys like Nolan, Tristan Gebbia, and most notably Jake Luton have flashed the ability to make big-time plays in the Smith era, but overall it's been inconsistent.

Football success oftentimes comes down to whether or not you've got a stud under center and the Beavers have gotten that in spurts rather than consistently throughout the Smith tenure.

That's not to say that Nolan can't still be that guy or even Ben Gulbranson, but the quarterback play to start conference play has been poor and it's been a big reason why the defense is staring down an 0-2 record.

With how quickly Trent Bray was able to improve the Oregon State defense in an offseason, it's starting to become a much bigger issue that the Beavers don't have the quarterback play to win big-time games.

In the last two weeks, we've seen the defense put forth an effort that would have at the very least given the Beavers a chance to win if the offense didn't commit numerous turnovers and that's undeniably frustrating.

The defense figured to be the biggest question mark coming into the season, as that was the side of the ball that really couldn't be counted on to win games in previous seasons. Yet, now we're seeing that narrative flipped as in the biggest two games of the year, the defense brought a winnable game plan while the offense committed too many turnovers to ultimately overcome.

For the Beavers to ultimately reach the level of an upper-echelon team, Smith and Lindgren are going to need more out of their quarterback. Whether that's putting them in better positions to succeed with better playcalling or tweaking some things, there's no question there's a lot to fix at the most important position on the field...