Oregon State Beavers Football: Thursday Report

With the Oregon State football team having wrapped up its sixth practice of fall camp in preparation for its Nov. 7th opener against Washington State, BeaversEdge.com Managing Editor Brenden Slaughter gives you the latest on the squad in this in-depth report.

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As the Oregon State football team pushes ahead toward its Nov. 7th opener against Washington State, there's been some hype around the Beavers have a sneaky-good defense.

After laboring through the growing pains of getting the system installed and carefully building the defense brick by brick, defensive coordinator Tim Tibesar is very excited about the potential of his defense as they've finally got all the depth and talent to operate at a high level.

"Overall, we've got a lot of guys coming back that played a lot of football for us," Tibesar said. "We've got more depth than we've had each of the last two camps. Seeing our growth and development over the past couple of seasons has been really positive. There's a real sense of competition at every position which will make us better every day."

Junior cornerback Jaydon Grant, whom secondary coach Blue Adams singled out in the offseason as the gold-standard for how he wants his corners to play, feels that this team is primed to make a big leap on defense because of how close of a unit they are.

"We've definitely got a lot of depth in the secondary and that's because we've got so many guys returning with experience," Grant said. "We have the same coach and the time we spent together during the offseason, even during quarantine really helped us immensely. Our results will show during the season. I'm extremely confident we'll take a step forward."

Another dose of good news for the Beaver defense is that after suffering a torn ACL in the second game of the season last year, sophomore outside linebacker Addison Gumbs feels the healthiest he has since he's been in Corvallis.

"I feel great. This is the best that I've felt in a long time," Gumbs said. "The recovery process has been amazing and I was able to get a lot of work in this offseason with the training staff to get me back on the field. This is the best I've felt since I've been at Oregon State and I'm ready to get going."

In terms of individual players on the defensive line and linebacker that have impressed Tibesar thus far, he didn't beat around the bush as he named several up and comers that have caught his eye over the first few practices.

"James Rawls has really popped and made some nice plays from the defensive line. He's really come along in year two and he's added some weight while still being explosive. He's really impressed," Tibesar said.

"Our inside 'backer depth right now is fantastic. You're seeing Omar Speights take some big steps after a really promising freshman season. Doug Taumoelau, Avery Roberts, Kyrei Fisher, and Jack Colletto have all looked really good too. The depth in that room is as good as there is. Isaac Garcia has really impressed at outside 'backer. We moved him there about a year ago and now going into year two, he's really popped on the tape with his pass rush."