Riley still looking for balance

MIKE RILEY said Josh Andrews may rotate in at guard as part of a three-man rotation with Burke Ellis and grant Enger, something they wouldn’t normally do but they want to get him in there on Saturday afternoons.

Asked to comment on the TV cameras on Mike Riley and defensive coordinator Mark Banker laughing, Riley said he didn’t recall the topic of conversation but it was probably a moment of irony, “because there was nothing funny about (that loss).”

Riley said in looking at the film, the missed tackles were the biggest statement on what went wrong in trying to stop the run.

Riley on Kyle Wittingham’s comment that he was surprised Oregon State didn’t stack the box – if OSU would have tackled better it wouldn’t have looked like that. In the second half, they handled the run better and didn’t change anything, they just tackled better.

We protected and did some things okay early in the game. As the game went along, we lost…the ability to have balance because we were down 24-0.

Stanford “beat us in every way last year,” said Riley. “We’ll look at our plan and get our guys ready to go. Obviously we have to score some points…we’re going to try and find balance.”

“Had we been able to protect, I think Sean (Mannion) was making some real good throws,” said Riley.

Riley said a lack of poise at the line of scrimmage resulted in the false start penalties.

Riley said the Beavs should have run more but down 24-0 or long yardage to go for first downs precluded them going more with the ground game.

“It’s going to take a monumental effort but once we get over (the loss) today..I think we’ll have a good week of practice,” said Riley.

“We’ve shown some steady improvement until this last game,” said Riley.

Riley said after meeting with the players Sunday, they were down but he thought they would be back up and ready to go for Tuesday’s practice.