LOS ANGELES — Ever been shot out of a cannon?
Oregon State pretty much did exactly that to itself on Saturday night. The Beavers ended their eight-year bowl game drought, lit the fuse on the Jimmy Kimmel LA Bowl, and sent themselves rocketing toward the translucent roof of SoFi Stadium.
OSU played a terrific 58 seconds, didn’t it?
Then Beavers reversed trajectory, succumbed to gravity and got beat 24-13 by Utah State. There’s a lesson in this somewhere. One that coach Jonathan Smith would be well served to share with his team before next season. But there’s just no getting around the fact that Oregon State lost to a Mountain West Conference team that started a quarterback who had never thrown a pass before Saturday night.
Bad loss for the Beavers.
Ugly start to the bowl season for the Pac-12.
Not all that surprising, either, to anyone who has watched OSU up close this season. Because while the Beavers were fun on the way to seven victories, they were also prone to self-destructive lapses. OSU was alternately terrific and terrible, inspired/flat, poised/sloppy. But most of all the Beavers played up/down to the level of competition.
Suit OSU up against Michigan? It hangs tough. Line the Beavers up against Linfield? They lose by 14. That kind of inconsistency helped Smith’s team beat Utah this season and also lose to Cal and Colorado. Maybe it’s a trait we should expect from a football program that is still learning how to win games. Whatever the case, this up-and-down act has to stop between now and the season opener in 2022 or Beavers fans are going to blow a gasket.
Credit to Smith for engineering a positive trajectory in his early tenure. He took over a program that had face-planted under Gary Andersen and Smith won a modest two games in his first season. Then, he won five, two, and now seven games. The LA Bowl was a nice reward for the program but even as I write that I’m looking at the 6-0 Beavers’ home record and a 1-6 road/neutral site mark. As the late Kobe Bryant once said, “Winning takes precedence over all. There’s no gray area. No almosts.”
Oregon State should have done so much more this season.
Will it be content with less?
At halftime on Saturday Jimmy Kimmel appeared on the field at SoFi Stadium and unveiled a giant cannon. He then lit a fuse and sent a T-shirt rocketing toward the roof. It cleared the upper deck of the largest NFL stadium in the land and bounded into the parking lot.
I couldn’t help but think of OSU’s start.
The Beavers opening drive covered three plays and 71 yards. Time elapsed: 58 seconds. Score: 7-0. If the LA Bowl had been a 400-meter race, OSU would have won the thing in a breeze. But a few hours later it became evident that Utah State was better prepared, more focused and built to run a marathon.
The Beavers’ band rode a bus from Corvallis to Los Angeles. Thousands of OSU fans bought tickets, stayed in hotel rooms, rented cars and cheered until they were hoarse. But in the end, this Beavers team was a sloppy, ineffective, puzzling mess. It started fast but fizzled on Saturday and managed two measly field goals after the opening drive.
37 weeks.
Eight months, two weeks and two days.
Approximately 6,200 hours.
That’s how long OSU has between now and the 2022 season opener at home vs. Boise State. Smith’s program has work to do. It needs to find a quarterback it can trust on game day, improve the defense, and upgrade the wide receiver corps. But above all the Beavers need to learn how to compete more consistently next season and stop playing up/down to the level of competition.
OSU broke through in 2021. It went from non-competitive to bowl eligible. Take the positive progress. The big picture is encouraging. But I’m troubled by some of what we saw this season. The no-shows against Cal and Colorado, in particular, and this LA Bowl performance. Some of the Beavers players who suited up on Saturday have played for three different head coaches in their careers. They’ve finally got some stability but they’ll need to find another gear amid increased expectations.
We need to see more from Oregon State next season.
This team beat Utah?
But couldn’t handle Utah State?
That first minute was something else. The Beavers were electric, creative and inspired. They went right down the field and I tweeted, “Oregon State came to play.”
Should have added, “… for a minute.”
The other 59 on Saturday belonged to Utah State.
When the LA Bowl ended on Saturday, the Aggies players showered their head coach with Gatorade and celebrated on the field. A few of the OSU players shook hands but the bulk of Smith’s team just turned and jogged toward the locker room, the season over.
When we see this OSU team next it better have more than 58 good seconds in it.
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