With the Oregon State football team set to start spring practices on Tuesday, BeaversEdge.com Managing Editor Brenden Slaughter poses five burning questions heading into spring.
Sign Up For New Annual Subscription, Get FREE Oregon State Gear!.
RELATED: Spring Previews: Offensive Skill | OL/DL | DB's & LB's
5. How will year three be different?
With the Oregon State football team entering the third year and the third spring session of the Jonathan Smith era, it'll be interesting to see what's different now that the majority of the team has been immersed in the program for multiple seasons. Smith hinted at his media roundtable last week that the practices would be slightly different with the Beavers being more of a veteran and established group, so I'm curious to see what that looks like on the practice field. The third-year of a rebuild is really when things start to turn for the better, so it'll be interesting to see the continued growth and development of this group.
4. What will be the goals and expectations?
After going 5-7 and coming inches away from a bowl berth last season, I'm very curious to see what the mindset and goals of the team are as they begin work on the 2020 campaign. Sure, fall is a ways off, but still, you know that the leaders of this team have clear expectations of what they're hoping to accomplish this season. Seniors like Hamilcar Rashed, Andrzej Hughes-Murray, Trevon Bradford, and Isaiah Dunn have been through the extreme lows early on in their college careers and will certainly be determined to finish it off on a high note. Taking it a step further, there's no question that Rashed, who spurned the NFL Draft to return for his senior season, has a lofty list of personal and team goals that he'd like to see accomplished in 2020. All in all, the Beavers are in as good of a position as they have been for some time in regards to being on the cusp of being "back" and that's a credit to the work that Smith and Co. have done in the past two years. They say hard work pays off, and I'm betting we'll begin to see the lessons learned over the past two seasons pay off in a big way when it comes to execution on the field.
