What We Learned: Oregon State Vs Colorado

Monday, October 06, 2014

Jeffrey Martin, GoLocalPDX Contributor

The Beavers prevailed in Saturday's game against Colorado's Buffalos. Here are three takeaways from the game.

Winning ugly is still winning.

Style and margin of victory may matter elsewhere, but the Beavers don't care. Winning is hard enough, especially in conference and on the road.

Sure, they might have had some luck or even help from the officials, as CU coach Mike MacIntyre seemed to infer with his actions, if not his words, afterwards, but results are final.

No, the Buffaloes aren’t very good, but they’re better than they’ve been recently. You’d rather be on the winning side of the ledger and tasked with tightening things up than the alternative, which illustrates the subtle shift in Corvallis...

The maturation signs are apparent.

One week after laying an apparent egg against USC – or so it seemed or so it was suggested – Oregon State rebounded rather nicely, no?

It’s clear how Mike Riley wants his team to function – the Beavers coach didn’t hesitate to hand it off this week to Storm Woods and Terron Ward, engaging Colorado’s underrated defensive front with a two-tight end set that literally plays to OSU’s strengths.

Meanwhile, Sean Mannion was efficient and, most importantly, didn’t turn the ball over. And, as pointed out in this space before, the defense applies just enough resistance while remaining relatively fresh.

There's still a tough stretch to manage yet, but how much harder would it have been with a loss in Boulder? Now, there's another bye before hosting Utah, which just beat the presumptive favorite in the South at the Rose Bowl. Utah unveiled its apparent new starting quarterback, Oklahoma transfer Kendal Thompson, in the process; then at Stanford, which is always a challenge regardless of the Cardinal's recent struggles, followed by three straight home games against teams that love to pitch it around the yard: California, Washington State and Arizona State.

What’s clear, though, is Oregon State is improving from week to week, which matters because…

The conference is wide open.

At 4-1, the Beavers have the same record as their rivals down the road. Given the amount of gloom and doom surrounding both programs in the past week or so, it’s sort of a startling situation. Arizona is the only undefeated team in the Pac-12, and it’s unlikely the Wildcats will remain unscathed for the duration of the season. UCLA is reeling, USC looks vulnerable and who knows what to make of Arizona State?

Oregon still has personnel issues, Stanford is still Stanford, but susceptible.

Don’t look now, but Utah and California are also 4-1.

The league might not be as strong as originally thought, but it’s destined to be even more competitive.

With some – and OK, even more – luck, Oregon State could be in the mix for not only the North, but the conference crown when the carnage clears.

Photo credit: osubeaver2000 on Flickr. CC License. Image cropped.