A few weeks ago, Oregon State needed to win a football game. Now, after three straight victories, the conversation around the Beavers has changed quite a bit.
Oregon State opened Pac-12 play Saturday with a 56-26 win at Colorado State, moving to 3-2 after a 0-2 start. Unlike the win over Montana, where simply getting into the win column mattered, or the 33-7 victory over UTEP, where the Beavers finally looked like the better team from beginning to end, this one showed something different.
This Oregon State offense might be really, really good.
Braden Atkinson was nearly flawless. The sophomore completed 31 of 34 passes for 430 yards, five touchdowns and zero interceptions, leading an offense that piled up 653 total yards and averaged 9.3 yards per play.
Atkinson has now thrown for at least 300 yards in all five games this season. At some point, we’ll probably have to stop talking about him as an interesting young quarterback with a lot of potential and start talking about what he already is: one of the biggest reasons Oregon State’s season suddenly looks a whole lot more interesting.
Colorado State certainly isn’t an elite defensive team, and that’s worth acknowledging before we start planning the parade route through Corvallis. The Rams have struggled defensively, and head coach Jim Mora even relieved defensive coordinator Tyson Summers of his play-calling duties after Oregon State’s first two possessions Saturday.
Still, 56 points is 56 points, and 653 yards is 653 yards. The Beavers never punted, converted seven of eight third downs and scored eight touchdowns, so this wasn’t a game where a couple of turnovers or special teams plays inflated the final score. Oregon State’s offense just kept moving the football.
At one point, this could have become uncomfortable. Oregon State jumped ahead 14-0 before Colorado State answered with two touchdowns to tie the game early in the second quarter.
Instead of letting a road game in front of 41,000 fans turn into something weird, Oregon State responded by scoring the next 28 points. Aaron Butler broke loose for a 30-yard touchdown run, Eric Olsen caught two touchdown passes, and Jesse Legree hauled in his second score of the afternoon just before halftime.
That response might have been the most encouraging part of the game. Oregon State didn’t panic when Colorado State erased the early lead, and it didn’t let the Rams hang around long enough to start believing they could steal one.
Of course, it’s getting increasingly difficult to talk about this offense without spending a lot of time on Jesse Legree. He caught only five passes Saturday, but those five catches went for 159 yards and three touchdowns, including scores of 50, 28 and 55 yards.
Legree has now gone over 100 receiving yards in five straight games. That matches the Oregon State streaks set by Mike Hass in 2005 and Brandin Cooks in 2013, which is pretty decent company for a freshman five games into his college career.
More importantly, Legree changes what defenses can do against Oregon State. He has become a legitimate home-run threat, and Atkinson clearly isn’t afraid to give him opportunities downfield. That opens up everything else, including an Oregon State running game that quietly produced another 223 yards Saturday.
AJ Newberry led that group with 90 yards on 15 carries, while Cornell Hatcher Jr. added 51 yards and a touchdown on seven carries. Oregon State doesn’t need Atkinson to throw the ball 50 times to generate offense, and that will matter as the competition gets better.
There are still things to clean up, especially defensively. Colorado State rushed for 188 yards, averaged 6.5 yards per carry, and hit Oregon State for a few explosive plays, including a 50-yard completion on its opening possession.
Against a better opponent, some of those plays could become a problem. The good news is that Oregon State also made stops when it needed them, including stuffing Colorado State after the Rams reached the OSU 4-yard line on their opening possession and later getting an interception from Drake Vickers.
That’s probably the right perspective after five games. Oregon State isn’t suddenly a finished product because it beat Montana, UTEP and Colorado State, and the 0-2 start didn’t magically disappear.
But this team looks dramatically better than it did a few weeks ago. The Beavers have won three straight, they’re 1-0 in Pac-12 play, and they’ve found a quarterback-receiver combination in Atkinson and Legree that opposing defenses will have to build their game plans around.
After the UTEP win, the question was whether Oregon State could carry that momentum into conference play. The Beavers answered emphatically on Saturday, scoring 56 points on the road and turning a 14-14 game into a rout.
Next up is San Diego State at Reser Stadium on Oct. 10, followed by Washington State a week later. Those games will tell us a little more about where this season is really headed, but Oregon State has already accomplished something that didn’t seem particularly likely after its 0-2 start.
The Beavers have made themselves interesting again. And with the way Atkinson and this offense are playing right now, they might be a whole lot more than that.
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