Bears Tap That Ass Today

Oregon State got their asses kicked by the California Bears this afternoon- 41-13. The game was over by the 2nd quarter as Cal raced to a 31-3 lead. Oregon State's defense was used like a wet rag in a baby's butt. They gave up 333 yards in the first half alone. They were embarrased by poor play on both offense and defense. I shouldn't leave out the coaches at OSU, they stunk it up too. Cal's Tedford repeated the same basic play call four times for huge chunks of yards, by putting Lynch on a LB, and throwing it to him over and over. Reilly refused to go to a dime package or was simply not thinking ahead of time. OSU Linebackers were obviously a target for Cal from the beginning. Lynch finished with 1 TD running and 110 yards total. Lynch also had 5 catches for 53 yards and two TD's.

OSU's offense did not help their porous defense for most of the game. Their first TD came off a Piscatelli interception, and a short field. Matt Moore was ineffective on third down's for whatever reason. His completion percentage was 66%, which is decent. But he couldn't engineer a meaningful drive the whole day. Canfield came in for mop up duty and was decent. Moore's life as the OSU QB has to be re-evaluated at this point. Even with Moore's decent stats this game, he did not make a positive difference. OSU needs it's offense to overcome it's ineptness on defense. Lot's of bowl teams of late have had average defenses and strong offenses. OSU's offense is average at best right now.

Reilly's interview with Steve Preece after the game was very telling. Reilly said that he told the team at halftime that their performance in the second half was the start of the rest of their season. So in the 3rd qtr the Beavers lost 7-3, but in the 4th qtr they evening things up 10-10. Impressive. Reilly also told Preece that the fumble on the Cal 10 early in the game was difficult to overcome thanks to Cal's dominating offense. I think this tells us that Reilly is searching for tactical reasons for his teams crappy performance. In my opinion the problem is systemic and holistic. OSU does not have the athletes to compete this year and the results are evidenced by their performance in todays game.

Conclusion:
Cal established themselves as a top tier Pac-10 team. Good for them.

OSU established themselves as a bottom tier Pac-10 team. There are lots of questions left for this season. It's a toss up as to whether they will even have a winning record this year. 2 losing seasons in a row is enough for the administration to make a decision in my opinion. Recruiting is clearly not progressing based on OSU's defensive performance this year. OSU had established themselves as "Linebacker U" up until this year. The secondary also used to be a strength. Brendan Browner's early exit has had a huge impact obviously, but Reilly should plan ahead and recruit better. There is no depth on defense, so expect more blowouts.


Box Score