The Beaver Barometer

In a historically unprecented move, Oregon State Athletic Director Bob DeCarolis, apparently disillusioned with Oregon State's recent run of below average play and a loss to Fresno State, appeared to walk onto the Practice Field Monday and literally yank Head Coach Mike Riley and all of his assistants off the field. De Carolis then proceeded to point at one of the graduate assistants standing on the sideline, and said: "You, you're in charge." Finally, De Carolis, Riley, and the rest of the coaching staff left in a black van with the Nike logo on the side, suggesting that perhaps Nike CEO and noted Oregon Football supporter Phil Knight put him up to the stunt. De Carolis, nor anyone else, could be reached for comment.

After being left to the wolves, seemingly, new(?) head coach SquirrelHunter managed to scrap together some form of practice for the rest of the time allotted, and attempted to maintain a sentiment of leadership over the program.

Coach Squirrel then allowed some questions for the media after practice, the answers are as follows:

"Coach,, what the hell just happened?"

CS: Well, uh, as you can see, uh, I was, uh, appointed to run the rest of this practice I guess. I don't know what happened to Coach Riley, but for now I will assume the role of Head Coach of the program I guess.

"Coach, how will you handle recruiting?"

CS: I will call all of the recruits on our board and assure them that we have things under control up here, I guess. I will also reassess the board, and try and get some more talented players interested -- that's what head coaches are supposed to do, I think?

"Coach, you still have a game this weekend against UCLA, how will you prepare your team?"

CS: I have no fucking cl -- I mean we'll watch film and decide what to do from there I guess. That's all the time I have for now, thanks.

Day 2 of the SquirrelHunter regime didn't appear to get off to a much better start. Coach Squirrel first came out onto the practice field with two unknown men and told the players: "Hey guys, meet your offensive coordinator Coach Raccoon Trapper, and your defensive coordinator, Coach Varmint Killer. These two played on my IM Championship-winning flag football team last year. [a statement to which the entire team laughed]."

After the brief introduction, Coach Squirrel and his new coordinators ran through practice, attempting to teach the players what exactly they wanted them to do. It appeared that the coaches are going to go with more of a 3-4 zone blitzing scheme, and a more power running type team.

Coach Squirrel was available to the media after practice:

"Coach, were you trying to teach the players some new formations this week? How does that impact your upcoming game against UCLA on Saturday?"

CS: Yes, I want to run a 3-4 scheme and power run the ball like Jim Harbaugh did at Stanford. We want to be known as a blue collar type, in your face, punch you in the mouth, white trash type team like Ben Affleck in Good Will Hunting. The glitz and glamour and gadgetry is for our feathered friends down south.

"Coach, have any recruits expressed their sudden disinterest after Coach Riley's departure? Where exactly is Coach Riley anyways?"

CS: Well actually we have decided to cut ties with a few recruits. We are a Pac-12 program, and we don't believe we should be competing with Idaho for recruits. My aim is much higher than that. As for the second part of your question, I have not heard anything about Coach Riley's whereabouts, so your guess is as good as mine.

Coach Squirrel's final media availability for the week came after Thursday's walk through,as the Beavers prepared to head down to Los Angeles to take on the undefeated UCLA Bruins.

"Coach, it has been a crazy week. What do you expect from your team going into a tough game at UCLA?"

CS: I expect perfection. I expect us to go down into the Rose Bowl and beat the tar out of them. I expect that after the game, people from around the country will recognize what the new Oregon State University football identity is all about. I expect that we fight for every inch. On this team, we tear ourselves and everyone else around us to pieces for every inch. We claw with our fingernails for every inch, because we know when we add up all those inches that’s gonna make the fuckin' difference between winning and losing! Between livin' and dyin'!!"

"Coach, didn't you steal that last part from the Al Pacino speech in Any Given Sunday?"

CS: No comment, See you after the game.

Oregon State Comes Up Short Against UCLA
Ill-timed sacks allowed by the offensive line, and clutch play from UCLA QB Kevin Prince doom OSU.

It's safe to say that the opening 1:28 and final 4:00 of the first game of the SquirrelHunter era started with a huge thud against UCLA. Oregon State came out looking a little rattled and confused early, and UCLA took advantage. The Bruins' first drive tore the Beavs up on the ground and through the air. With 5:32 left in the first quarter, Quarterback Kevin Prince hit receiver Jerry Rice Jr. on a 26 yard TD pass.

"I was disappointed with the opening drive, for us on defense and then the next drive with us on offense. We looked very confused," Coach Squirrel would later say.

After approximately the first half of the first quarter, though, the tide began to turn. Cornerback Rashaad Reynolds recovered a Kevin Prince fumble with 3 minutes left in the 1st to give OSU the ball at midfield. The OSU offense then led a drive down the field, and punched the ball in the end zone on a 2 yard power run by Terron Ward.

On the next UCLA possession, OSU Freshman CB Chris Miller intercepted an option pitch, and took it back to the house. "We [the DBs] had been taught to play the pitch, after the LBs forced him to throw it. I just timed it right." Miller also intercepted a pass from Prince on the day.

A missed field goal by UCLA led to another Oregon State drive, this one ending in a field goal. UCLA was outscored 17-0 in the 2nd quarter, and the Beavers looked dominant.

In the 3rd, the Beavers' offense again looked like they were in a rhythm and in total control. But UCLA managed to sack QB Sean Mannion for an 11 yard loss in UCLA territory, and the Beavers were eventually forced to punt.

The 4th is when the tide turned back in UCLA favor: down 20-7, Prince hit HB Malcolm Jones on a 36 yard TD pass. The Bruins then got the ball back with 2:05 left, needing a long TD drive from Prince. And Prince responded: a 9 yard pass, an 11 yard pass, a 24 yard pass... the drive went on until Prince ran the ball in for the go-ahead score with 38 seconds left.

Sean Mannion would still get his shot, though. With only 1 timeout, and down by 1 with 38 seconds left, OSU needed a big return to have a shot. Senior CB Jordan Poyer responded with a 43 yarder, setting up the Beavers at their own 40. Mannion hit HB Malcolm Agnew on a 7 yard pass, then hit Wheaton on a 4 yard pass for a first down. However, the Beavers were out of timeout, and had to run the hurry up. Unfortunately, freshman WR Micah Hatfield couldn't hear the playcall, and took too long to get lined up correctly, and the Beavers ran out of time after a deep pass to Wheaton fell incomplete. "A disappointment, I thought we played really well for 40 minutes in that game. But football is a 60 minute game," Mannion said.

PLAYER OF THE GAME: CB Sean Miller, 1 FR-TD, 1 INT.

Wow, exciting game to get the SquirrelHunter era started. Sorry you ended up on the wrong end. Great write up as well.

So for those keeping score ...

- That makes two PAC12 games this week that game down to the final drive with the User team losing when time ran out in the no huddle offense.

- UCLA is now 2-0 vs User opponents (they beat EDJ's Nebraska team earlier this season). Coach Jim Mora Jr is doing something right in LA. Warning to Truth ... don't take the Bruins lightly.

That programming of the WR's to delay 7+ seconds during no huddle is ridiculous. Sorry to hear that's why you lost the game.

As we enter the second week of the Coach SquirrelHunter regime, we here at the Beaver Barometer (put a Beaver on it!) had a few questions. Namely:

1) Who is Coach Squirrel?

2) Where did he get this sweet sombrero?

3) [Stone Phillips voice] If OSU keeps losing, will he snap and kill a drifter?

4) What happened to Mike Riley?

Through some very professional investigative journalism, here's what we've uncovered so far:

According to his Facebook, Coach Squirrel grew up in Oregon. He was studying Underwater Basket Weaving at OSU at the time of his hiring. He "likes" the 49ers, the San Francisco Giants, Golfing, Bacon, Big Boobs, and "Women who make good sandwiches." He apparently got the job as a graduate assistant at Oregon State after winning 10 straight national titles in the video game NCAA Football 11. He showed this to the assistant AD, who hired him on the spot.



Coach Squirrel, in undoubtedly happier times

It's obviously very difficult to forecast Oregon State's future. While we liked what we saw against UCLA, that was only one game, and now it's his job to not let his players get too down on themselves. Furthermore, we have no idea how having a 21 year old be the head coach of a football program will effect recruiting. There were also some unconfirmed rumours of about 60 briefcases in the OSU Football office, loaded with unmarked bills, and postmarked for the addresses of recruits that OSU had recently contacted...


As for the Mike Riley question, still nobody has heard anything from him; nor athletic director Bob DeCarolis.

Oregon State defeats Arizona 34-17.

I don't know what happened, I had a game story ready to go but the game results never got uploaded

ohh well. at least OSU won

HOLY SHIT!
Oregon State prevails against Washington State in an epic game

The first home game of the Coach SquirrelHunter era at Oregon State got off to a pretty dramatic start, to say the least. In a game that featured a total of 72 points scored, 35(!!!) of them were scored in the fourth quarter.

The game started out innocently enough: Oregon State put together a nice long drive to open up the game and capped it off with an 11 yard scoring pass from Sean Mannion to Obum Gwacham [starting HB Malcolm Agnew was actualy knocked out of the game on the second play, he's expected to return in about a month. (ed. note: "shit")]. Washington State answered with a long scoring drive of their own, and then scored another TD about a minute later to take a 14-7 lead in the second quarter. After trading punts, the Oregon State defense managed to force the Cougars to a 3 and out, and senior CB Jordan Poyer took a punt 87 yards to the house. Poyer literally ran to the right, and nobody contained him that way... I don't think a Wazzu defender was ever within 5 yards of him.

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17ypv5kdhi2hmgif/original.gif
Sean Connery himself definitely approved of Poyer's punt return

Oregon State really struggled on offense after that initial scoring drive, as they were held to just 3 points on offense (and no drives of more than a few plays, really) until the 4th quarter. Wazzu tacked on 2 field goals in the third quarter to make the score 20-17.

But the 4th quarter is when things really got crazy. Oregon State started things off on a 39 yard TD pass from Sean Mannion to Brandin Cooks, on a 4th and 3 from the Wazzu 39, no less. Not to be outdone, Wazzu answered on a 17 yard run by HB Marcus Mason. On the next drive, again facing a 4th down (this time it was a 4th and 10 with the Beavers trailing 27-24 and having no timeouts left), Mannion hit true freshman WR Zack Robinson on a 50 yard streak. The strong safety for the Cougars appeared to sell out on a pump fake from Mannion to stud WR Markus Wheaton, and Mannion took advantage.

But Mike Leach's Cougars refused to relent. With barely over 2 minutes left and all of their timeouts, they quickly drove the field. After managing to stop them on a goal-to-go situation for the first 3 downs, the Beavers' defense just needed to make one more stop in order to preserve the win. But instead, on a 4th and goal from the 7 yard line, Wazzu QB Connor Halliday, who really had his way all day long, hit TE Andrei Lintz on a corner route. Lintz appeared to be out of bounds when he actually made the catch, but after review the call stood. Coach SquirrelHunter looked as if he might spontaneously combust, and his coaching staff had to hold him back after he grabbed an unused cleat on the sideline and started charging the official.

http://www.easports.com/media/play/video/135013409
Was he inbounds?

Most unbelievably, though, the scoring in this game was not quite done. Sean Mannion and the Beavers knew that they had extremely long odds -- they basically needed to drive at least 50 yards to get into field goal range to tie the game in less than a minute with no timeouts. Looking to get the drive jumpstarted, the Beavers called for a slip screen pass to backup RB Jovan Stevenson. Jovan snuck out of the backfield and appeared to have blockers in front of him and plenty of room to operate, but the ol' Turf Monster snuck up and grabbed him as he was making the catch, causing a 4 yard loss and more importantly, the loss of about 30 seconds. Sprinting to the line, Mannion audibled to a different play, this time hoping to get Wheaton open on a corner route. Instead though, Mannion noticed that Gwacham was running wide open in the seam, and hit him. Gwacham caught the ball and somehow managed to run into the Washington State endzone untouched. Touchdown Beavers.

http://www.easports.com/media/play/video/135013483
"I noticed that the safety had come up to play Gwacham close, which suggested that they were going to try a Cover 3," Mannion said after the game, "but I honestly did not expect their safety and corner help to be so slow to catch him."


The Cougars played the Black Knight to the Beavers' King Arthur, as they refused to die.


"'Tis a flesh wound." Mike Leach said to Connor Halliday as they waited for their chance to answer and win the game.

Down by 4, Halliday and the Cougars had 28 seconds (and no timeouts) to score a touchdown in order to win it. The drive started with a completed corner route on the sidelines for an 18 yard gain. Next, Halliday found HB Carl Winston wide open in the flats, and he got another 20 yards. The play that followed was nearly the backbreaker: from the Beavers' 43 and with 10 seconds left, Halliday found WR Rickey Galvin wiiiiiiide open in the middle of the field. Galvin scampered down and attempted to win the game by getting into the endzone, but he was gang tackled just shy of the 4 yard line. The Cougars then sprinted up field and spiked the ball, with only 3 seconds remaining.

There is no possible way to accurately describe the final play of the game, so just watch it:

http://www.easports.com/media/play/video/135013504

I guess the best way to put it is Leach called for a TE screen on the left side, and Lintz almost made it into the endzone. But somehow MLB Feti Unga managed to push him out of bounds, literally INCHES short of the goal line. In fact, in real time I definitely thought that Wazzu had scored, and OSU had lost. After about 10 seconds of contemplating whether or not to chuck my controller through the TV screen, I realized that the Washington State fight song had not played, and the Beavers had won. One of the most incredible finishes, and certainly 4th quarters, I've even been a part of in the NCAA football series.

PLAYER OF THE GAME: MLB Feti Unga, for coming out of nowhere to stop Lintz inches from the goal line and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, after the Beavers nearly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, multiple times.

Wow Squirrel. Just wow.

Damn. Awesome game man. Helluva way to win it.

Steel Pitt wrote:Damn. Awesome game man. Helluva way to win it.

Every game i've played so far in 13 has come down to the final possession. I would say that OSU should be 3-0 in the conference, but it could just as easily be 0-3. But the Pac-12 North appears to be wide open this year, and Wazzu was off to a great start. Losing Agnew is going to hurt, but if we can stay hot hopefully we'll be able to set up a Civil War with a trip to the Pac-12 Championship on the line.

SquirrelHunter wrote:... but if we can stay hot hopefully we'll be able to set up a Civil War with a trip to the Pac-12 Championship on the line.

I like it when the rivalry games are user/user games. If everyone stays we'll also have a user/user Florida vs Florida State game. But to have that game be for the right to play in the PAC12 Championship would be even better.

BYU Goes Missionary Right Through [the] Beavers
They got a little bit of a spanking in there too

BYU absolutely destroyed OSU this week. With starting HB Malcolm Agnew out, Oregon State could not generate a running game at all. As a result, the offense became extremely one dimensional, as sophomore QB Sean Mannion was forced to try and win this game on his own, which he couldn't do. Mannion threw 4 picks, his first interceptions this year.

But no matter what the OSU offense did, it would never have mattered because freshman BYU RB Jamaal Williams ran for 264 yards and 2 TDs on 18 carries (including 5 runs of 20+ yards). No matter what the Beavers tried to do -- whether that was stacking the box, blitzing all the linebackers, keying on the run game -- Williams found crease after crease after crease and was able to make the OSU defense look like they were skating on ice.

The final from Provo: BYU 51, OSU 17.