Just spit ballin’ here but has anyone else noticed that Oregon State football coach Jonathan Smith doesn’t have a panic button?
Smith’s Beavers used their bye week to recruit, recuperate, and then emerged and beat the pants off the team that was in the driver’s seat in the South Division on Saturday night.
Final: Oregon State 42, Utah 34.
Things in life are rarely as good — or as bad — as they seem. Still, it’s up and down all over the place in sports. But I’ve noted in conversations with colleagues around the conference that Smith is emotionally controlled and his football team has assumed that identity.
Behind 14-0 in the first eight minutes to Utah?
Trailing 24-14 at halftime?
Anyone notice you can never tell if the Beavers are winning or losing by looking at Smith on the sideline?
“They’re well coached, and they have an identity, and they know exactly who they are and what they want to be,” Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said from the losing locker room on Saturday.
Oregon State, now 5-2 this season, hosted 40 official and unofficial visitors on what goes down as the biggest recruiting weekend anyone can remember during Smith’s tenure in Corvallis. The performance on the field was a knockout statement that is certain to leave not just an impression, but an impact. Still, it’s the even-keeled Smith I’m thinking about today.
I’m not saying the OSU coach doesn’t get emotionally charged. We’ve all seen videos of the coach celebrating in the locker room with his players. On Saturday he was fired up when his defense came up with key stops on fourth down. But Smith is particularly measured vs. his peers and it has helped shape the journey he’s on.
Let’s back up.
In September, Oregon State upset USC 45-27 on the road. I tracked Smith around the stadium after that win. He was back-slapping and celebrating with his players. His older brother ran up to him on the field and they shared a hug. Then, as he walked off the field Smith looked up at the scoreboard.
I’d picked the Beavers to upset USC 30-28 earlier in the week.
Smith noticed me watching him, then dead-panned and pointed at the score: “Come on man, you only picked us by two points. Look at that.”
The tunnel at the Los Angeles Coliseum is a gaping passageway. So big you could drive an 18-wheeler up the ramp past the vistor’s locker room and out of the stadium. After the win, Smith walked up that tunnel a few steps from his quarterback, Chance Nolan. He tapped Nolan on the shoulder and they stopped to talk for a moment.
Smith wasn’t shouting and celebrating. He wasn’t even smiling. He shook Nolan’s hand, told him to enjoy the moment, then whispered a few words to his quarterback.
I asked Smith about it later and he said he was trying to frame Nolan’s perspective before they went into the locker room with the other players. He instructed the quarterback to not allow beating USC to be Oregon State’s ceiling this season.
“We ain’t done yet” Smith shouted a few minutes later with his players in the locker room.
Nolan walked into the post-game news conference and echoed, “We’re not done.”
Smith’s players trust him.
Everyone can see it.
There were a pile of recruits at Reser Stadium on Saturday who got to witness it, too. The success didn’t sprout overnight. It was built, one player and one message at time. I suspect Smith’s grounded nature served him when he was 2-10 in his first season in Corvallis. I’m sure it served him going into the bye week after a disappointing loss to Washington State. Never too high, or too low. But it’s also serving him as the Beavers chase a once-unthinkable North Division title.
“I think they have the best offense in the conference, and statistically that will bear out,” Whittingham said on Saturday. ”They run the ball better than anybody, they score more points than anybody, convert third downs better than anybody. … Their offensive line is extremely efficient.“
It’s Cal next week on the road. Like a lot of coaches that’s as far as Smith allows his players to think. But athletic director Scott Barnes has to be looking longer term at Smith’s contract — $2.44 million this season. It makes him the lowest-paid coach in the Pac-12, earning less than half the $5.2 million that Whittingham will make. Smith is the 62nd-highest paid college football coach in America.
Barnes needs to address that immediately.
How did Smith celebrate Saturday’s big win?
His team won the game. He did the usual locker room thing with his players. Those at the post-game news conference tell me Oregon State’s coach was very measured. Not surprised there. Also not surprised at what Smith said as he left the news conference.
He had victories over USC and Washington this season. He’d just topped Utah, too. Smith walked off, holding another signature win in a wonderful season, but stopped to ask sports information director Shawn Schoeffler an important question.
“What’s the score?” the Beavers’ coach asked.
The kid from LA wanted to know if his Dodgers still had life.
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