With the Oregon State football team having wrapped up the first two weeks of spring football with their first scrimmage on Saturday, BeaversEdge Publisher Brenden Slaughter gives three important takeaways from the action!
1. Defense Starts Fast, Offense Has A Few Standout Moments
As is typical in fall camp at this stage, Oregon State’s defense is ahead of its offense, and we saw that play out during the hour-plus first scrimmage of camp. That’s not to say that the offense didn’t have standout moments, such as a 70-yard Salahadin Allah touchdown run or a pair of Eddie Freauff touchdown grabs, but they came later in the session.
To start the scrimmage, as we talked about in our five questions preview piece, Trent Bray’s defense came out swinging, bringing a variety of delayed blitzes and different looks to confuse the offense. This aggressiveness was exemplified on one of the first few plays of the scrimmage, when Bray sent safety Skyler Thomas on a blitz, and Thomas was able to get to Murphy before he could do anything.
The Beavers also did a really nice job of being able to put pressure on all the quarterbacks that took reps today. The most notable example was when Gabarri Johnson was looking downfield and instead found Mason White, who snagged the errant pass and nearly returned it for a score, before being tackled by Johnson.
Additionally, I’d give the nod to the defensive line vs the offensive line throughout the entirety of practice. I thought the OL did better than I expected, considering they didn’t have starter Van Wells, but you could tell the defense was able to pin their ears back and get after the backfield.
2. Oregon State’s Offensive Playcalling Stood Out
While I would give the “win” to the defense today, there was still plenty to be excited about on the offensive side of the ball, notably offensive coordinator Ryan Gunderson’s playcalling.
As mentioned above, the offense was able to find the endzone a few times today, getting better as the day progressed, and that speaks to the growth we’ve talked about from Gundy as a play-caller.
Perhaps it’s a result of having a stronger grouping of personnel, but I was particularly impressed with the game he called, even when some of the plays didn’t connect. Compared to last fall camp, the Beavers are working a lot more on play-action, and Maalik Murphy is adept at PA-Reads, PA-Rollouts, and RPOs.
Very early in the scrimmage, the Beavers dialed up a deep shot to Trent Walker off of play-action, but Walker was in double coverage, and the secondary did a great job of knocking the ball away. Several plays later, the Beavers tried to connect with Walker again, this time on a rollout to the far side. Nikko Taylor was right in Murphy’s grill, but he was able to throw over the top of Taylor and hit Walker on the sideline; however, he wasn’t able to hang onto the ball, as a result of the physical DB play.
Additionally, we saw the Beavers use the stretch run play to perfection. On Allah’s 70+ yard score, it was a pretty simple HB stretch to the far side, and Allah was able to find the gaps and race down the sideline, outrunning the entire defense for six.
We also saw redshirt-freshman wide receiver Eddie Freauff have a standout day, as he hauled in a pair of touchdown scores and perhaps elevated himself toward the No. 3 receiver position in the final weeks.
All in all, it was far from a perfect offensive performance, but I thought Gundy called a pretty clean scrimmage. When the unit is stronger and has better cohesion, the group should be in a position to win the next scrimmage next Saturday.
3. Special Teams Has Strong Day, Gains Clarity
While the offense and defense were going at each other throughout the hour-plus scrimmage, it was the special teams unit that stood out and may have gotten closer to finalizing its depth chart.
Have a day, Caleb Ojeda… We’ve talked about how Ojeda has shown promise from 40 yards and in, but the distance was still a question mark. However, he perhaps answered those questions resoundingly on Saturday as he nailed a 55-yard field goal roughly halfway through scrimmage. He missed to the left on a 45-yard kick later in the session, but considering he’s currently the only healthy kicker, it’s his job to lose.
Over on the punting side of things, Max Walker and AJ Winsor split the duties, and at this point, it’s fair to assume there may be an “or” next to both of their names, because each has had some standout moments.
Also of note, the Beavers had Walker working as the kickoff specialist, hitting close to the endzone, and as the extra-point kicker, which he nailed his lone attempt.
Additionally, the Beavers also worked their running backs into the punt and kick return rotation, with Salahadin Allah and Kourdey Glass joining the usual suspects of David Wells and Taz Reddicks.
All told, considering the Beavers lost kicker Everett Hayes and punter Josh Green to graduation in the offseason, Bray and Co. should feel pretty optimistic about what ST coordinator Jamie Christian has been able to do getting the unit up to speed pretty quickly.
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