And be sure to include in your report the all night mugging of RB Steven Jackson
that held him to his lowest rushing total of the season at 49 yards on 22 carries.
Playing on the O-line Saturday night was a group of players that couldn’t
open a hole for Jackson or keep QB Derek Anderson from being sacked by an occasional
three-man rush. Cleverly disguised, the names on the jerseys were the same,
but not the blocking.
It’s impossible to have a successful football team, let alone a successful
game, when the front five cannot complete their assignments. Games are won and
lost in the trenches and the Beavers have a lot of breakdowns to review and
analyze to answer why they clearly lost in that three-yard battleground.
But let me be fair, while the hammering OSU took in trench warfare certainly
was the crux of the loss and was most unexpected, that’s not the only
glaring area that got lit up by the University of Washington Huskies.
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| Steven Jackson and the offensive line could not
get the running game going against UW. |
Anderson was under pressure all night long, but consistently made the wrong
decision, threw into double coverage, or plain misfired which led to three interceptions.
Credit his receivers for making the rest of the numbers look presentable by
making several adjustments or acrobatic catches to give Beaver Nation some hope
during the debacle, but make no doubt about it, it was not a good performance
by the quarterback.
Jackson was shut down, and the O-line has to answer for that this week during
practice, but there’s more to look at there. Let me preface my next comments
by saying that Steven Jackson is a stud. He is one of the best running backs
in the country and, barring some catastrophic injury, will be playing on Sundays.
But I must take issue with the running game. There is a time and a place for
picking your hole, dancing to the left and right, waiting for something to open
up, and then turning on the afterburners. Jackson is one of the best in college
football at doing that. But there is also a time and a place for knowing when
you need to be taking the ball from your QB, dropping your shoulders and hitting
anything in front of you as fast and as hard as you can.
Jackson does that well at the end of a run, particularly when it’s near
a sideline. But if things are piling up around him at the line of scrimmage,
he doesn’t make the decision to do it soon enough and ends up losing his
primary assets, speed and strength, because he’s still trying to make
a move while he’s getting hit at the line.
Finally, I would be thoughtless in not pointing out the defense getting burnt
deep on several occasions, even when in double coverage. I would be remiss in
not mentioning that coverage on special teams was exposed as a liability again.
And I would be thoughtless by not pointing out that “Mr. Automatic”
Kirk Yliniemi missed another field goal; shocking, really, when looking at his
past performances. Oh, and do I really need to mention penalties again? Opps,
I just did.
So what does this all mean for the Beavers? A good deal, really. What it means
is that this football team has just been handed it’s greatest opportunity
of the season. Yes, an opportunity. The Beavers have been handed the opportunity
to show their fans, the Pac-10, and the nation just how great the character
of this team really is.
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| Derek Anderson and the offensive line will
look to demolish WSU's defense. |
Next up on the schedule is the #6 Washington State Cougars, a road game with
potential written all over it.
The players in Orange and Black have a decision to make; they can finish out
their year with a couple more wins, call it a winning season, hope for a minor
bowl birth, and get on with being the Oregon State of the last couple of years.
Or, they can shock everybody but themselves by coming out next Saturday and
putting a conference stain on the Cougars record. They can pick up blocks they’ve
dropped and put them back together as a dam of power. They can execute with
precision, grace, and some old school, smash mouthed destructive hitting. They
can show character. They can be great.
Robert Nesta can be read on BeaverFootball.com during the middle of every week.
The views expressed in his column do not necessarily represent those of BeaverFootball.com
He can be reached at robert.nesta@beaverfootball.com.