Thursday, September 04, 2008

Re-Examining Oregon State

I had taken a pre-season look at the Beavers a couple of months back, if you want, you can read it here. However, now that we have some actual data on the 2008 OSU team it would be prudent to see what we can possibly take away from the Beaver’s debacle against Stanford.


What kept OSU from pulling victory from the jaws of Defeat? QB play. You can find the nine points the Beavers needed to vanquish the Cardinals in the mistakes that Moevao made in the final 18 minutes of the game. First, Moevao threw an errant lateral out of the back of the end zone resulting in a safety. There is two points. Nine minutes later, Moevao tosses a pick six. That is nine points on two plays. OSU lost by eight to Stanford. The three turnovers didn’t hurt either.


What caused this melt down? Pressure. What will PSU have to do to unravel Moevao and with him the Beaver’s offense? Pressure the QB. All. Day. Long. Pressure will rattle Moevao and cause some of the turnovers and mistakes that doomed the mighty Beavers in week one.


However, PSU will not be able to merely blitz everyone on every play. The Defensive line will need to create pressure on their own. The PSU secondary is still a little shaky and OSU passed the ball 54 times for over 400 yards last week. If PSU can get pressure with their talented front four, the Lions will win. PSU might just be able to do it as the Beaver’s offensive line gave up 3 TFL, 2 sacks, 2 broken up passes, and one hurry. To STANFORD! I think PSU should be able to improve on those numbers greatly, they will have to.


This will all be impacted, of course, by the shake out of the Marijuana incident. Will Koroma and Evans miss time? Who knows. If they do, this puts a major dent in my little "strategy". I suppose this would mean that the LBs would have to blitz which would leave an inexperienced secondary on their own with a talented group of wide receivers.


In sum, the key to destroying Oregon State is by crushing their QB as often as humanly possible and by any means necessary. This will disrupt the passing game and create turnovers.



Go State! Beat The Beavers!

No comments: