Beavers as bad as the weather in Vegas loss

On Sports

By kerry eggers

The Portland Tribune, Dec 24, 2009

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LAS VEGAS – If you’re only as good as your last game in college football, well, Oregon State is pretty bad.

Or at least Brigham Young, and raging winds, made the Beavers look that way in a 44-20 trouncing in Tuesday night’s Maaco Las Vegas Bowl.

Prior to the game, I said the only thing that would surprise me about a potential outcome would be a blowout victory by either team.

What do I know?

There’s an astrological term called “harmonic convergence” that comes to mind as I think of ways to describe what happened at Sam Boyd Stadium.

It seemed like there was something out of a perfect planetary alignment that allowed BYU to stomp the Beavers.

That’s not an excuse. The Cougars deserved every bit of their resounding victory, and the Beavers deserved their defeat.

But if the teams were to meet 10 times on the gridiron, I think they’d each win five.

They’re that close in terms of talent and coaching ability.

So what happened Tuesday night?

A little bit of everything, most of it bad for the Beavers.

A pass that was oh-so-close to being forward was ruled backward, which turned into a Jacquizz Rodgers fumble, which turned into a Matt Bauman 34-yard return for a touchdown and an early 14-7 lead for BYU.

Moments later, it appeared Oregon State had made a break when Suaesi Tuamaunei returned a fumbled punt to the BYU 1-yard line. But the snap to punter Johnny Hekker was high, and maybe protector Cameron Collins sensed it might get blocked, and maybe that was why he grabbed an onrushing Cougar. The holding call negated the play that would have set the Beavers up to tie the game at 14-14.

Hekker, only a year removed from being most valuable special teams player at the 2008 Sun Bowl, had a nightmarish time dealing with the gusting winds, launching a pair of eyesore six-yard punts in the second quarter.

BYU’s Riley Stephenson did a better job, and twice got the luck of the roll with the wind at his back. On one, he kicked a line drive that was out of reach of OSU returner James Rodgers. The ball hit the FieldTurf and bounced another 20 yards for a 60-yard punt. On another, he lofted a wedge shot that hit at about the OSU 20 and spun nicely toward the Beaver goal line, landing at the 8.

OSU quarterback Sean Canfield was not sharp in his final appearance as a Beaver, but he also had several drops from receivers. BYU’s Max Hall was better, and the Cougars were terrific when they had to be, converting 8 of 14 third-down opportunities to 5 of 16 for the Beavers.

Oregon State couldn’t take advantage of almost unbelievable early field position. The Beavers started their four first-quarter drives at the BYU 49, the BYU 37, the OSU 40 and the OSU 41.

There was no rhythm to the Beaver offense, in part due to a weather day that reminded of the Pacific Northwest’s Columbus Day storm of 1962.

I was on the field at game’s end and quickly drew an appreciation for what the players went through as winds rushed through the stadium, with gusts up to 55 miles per hour. Oregon State coach Mike Riley, who coached a lot of years in Canada, said he had never coached in winds so fierce.

“It was pretty bad,” Quizz Rodgers said. “I didn’t realize it until we stepped out onto the field before the game. We were here four days, and it’s the only day it was like this.

“You can’t blame (the loss on) that, but it affected us a little bit. It hurt with the passing. When it’s that cold, it makes your gloves slick and it’s hard to catch the ball. You got balls flying everywhere because of the wind. You got punts negative-six yards.”

Six yards, negative-six yards, what’s the difference?

“It affected the game quite a bit,” BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall said. “Once we saw the first couple of passes, there were sliders and curveballs and floaters. No matter who was throwing the ball, that was difficult.

“Once we saw how it was going to be for us, we knew it was going to be like that for them as well. It was going to be a matter of which team adjusted the quickest and the most effectively.”

That, certainly, was BYU.

I liked Canfield’s response when asked how the weather conditions affected OSU’s play.

“Not at all,” he said. “Both teams were playing in it. We took care of that pregame, and it wasn’t an issue.”

Of course it was. But his point was, the Cougars were facing the same conditions.

It was Riley’s first loss in six bowl games as head coach of the Beavers, who return 19 starters from this team that probably overachieved to finish 8-5 this season.

Still, to end with losses to Oregon and Brigham Young is not a way to go into winter.

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