An 0-2 record usually doesn’t come with much of a pulse. Oregon State’s does.
Saturday night, the Beavers spent the better part of four quarters annoying the heck out of No. 13 Texas Tech. They traded shots with a team expected to beat them comfortably, climbed out of multiple holes, and eventually grabbed a 24-21 lead early in the fourth quarter before Texas Tech finally wrestled the game away, 35-24.
A loss is still a loss, of course. Nobody is hanging a banner at Reser Stadium for “Led Texas Tech With 13 Minutes Remaining.”
Still, this one felt important.
A year ago, Texas Tech flattened Oregon State 45-14 in Lubbock. The Beavers didn’t score until the fourth quarter and were outgained 599-289. This time Oregon State piled up 472 yards, held Texas Tech to 352 and made the Red Raiders sweat until the closing minutes.
That’s a pretty dramatic change in 12 months.
Oregon State may have found the fun version of its offense
There is still plenty wrong with the Oregon State offense, particularly on the ground. But for the first time in a while, the Beavers have something opposing defensive coordinators will have to worry about before bedtime.
Braden Atkinson can sling it.
Atkinson followed his 376-yard Oregon State debut at Houston by throwing for 399 yards against Texas Tech. Through two games, that’s 775 passing yards against two ranked Big 12 opponents. He hasn’t exactly been padding his stats against teams collecting a paycheck for visiting Corvallis.
More important than the totals, though, was the way Atkinson kept answering.
Texas Tech scored first, and Atkinson responded with a 75-yard touchdown strike to Jesse Legree. When the Red Raiders went ahead 21-13 in the third quarter, Atkinson found Legree for another touchdown and then ran in the two-point conversion to tie the game.
Oregon State didn’t spend Saturday hoping Texas Tech would screw up enough times to keep things interesting. The Beavers built their own offense, and they built a lot of it.
That’s a much healthier way to live.
Jesse Legree has gone from interesting to ridiculous
Through two college football games, Jesse Legree has 13 catches for 376 yards and three touchdowns. At some point, we’re probably allowed to stop adding the words “for a freshman” to everything he does.
Legree caught eight passes for 240 yards and two touchdowns Saturday. His first score covered 75 yards, and his second went for 37 as Oregon State erased an eight-point deficit in the third quarter.
That’s not simply a young player showing potential. That’s a young player actively changing games.
The Atkinson-Legree combination also gives JaMarcus Shephard’s new program something every rebuild desperately needs: an identity. Oregon State can stretch the field. It can score quickly. It has a quarterback willing to attack and a receiver who can turn one mistake by a defensive back into six points before anyone can find the remote.
And Legree has played two college games.
That’s the part Oregon State fans should probably be most excited about.
But the running game is becoming impossible to ignore
Here’s the less enjoyable portion of the conversation.
Oregon State finished with 69 rushing yards against Texas Tech after managing only 26 in the opener against Houston. That’s 95 rushing yards in two games, which isn’t a running game so much as occasionally remembering you’re allowed to hand the ball off.
The Beavers attempted 50 passes Saturday if you include AJ Newberry’s touchdown throw to Atkinson. They ran it only 21 times.
Some of that comes from what the game demanded, and when Atkinson is throwing for nearly 400 yards, nobody should complain that Oregon State is passing too often just for the sake of complaining. But eventually, defenses will adjust.
They’ll give Legree more attention. They’ll bring pressure at Atkinson. They’ll dare Oregon State to win five yards at a time instead of 50.
The Beavers need an answer when that happens.
The encouraging part wasn’t just that Oregon State stayed close
Close losses can be wildly overrated in college football. Sometimes the losing team catches a few breaks, hangs around for three quarters, and gets praised afterward because everyone wants to feel better about the final score.
This wasn’t really that.
Oregon State outgained Texas Tech by 120 yards. The Beavers averaged 6.6 yards per play compared with Texas Tech’s 4.8, possessed the ball slightly longer, and entered the fourth quarter tied before taking the lead on Caleb Ojeda’s field goal.
Texas Tech ultimately did what good teams do. It responded with a 32-yard touchdown pass from Will Hammond to Coy Eakin, then put the game away with another touchdown in the final minutes.
That is where Oregon State’s next step lives.
Playing good teams close is progress. Beating them requires knowing what to do once you have them cornered.
Now comes the part that will tell us what Saturday actually meant
Oregon State has opened the season against two ranked Big 12 opponents, losing 33-20 at Houston and 35-24 against Texas Tech. The schedule now changes considerably, with Montana coming to Reser Stadium before Oregon State travels to UTEP and then opens Pac-12 play at Colorado State.
That’s where it gets interesting.
If Saturday was real progress, Oregon State should begin turning these encouraging stretches into wins. Atkinson shouldn’t need 400 passing yards every week, Legree shouldn’t need to look like Randy Moss for the offense to function, and the defense needs to make sure late-game opportunities don’t disappear as quickly as Saturday’s did.
But two games into the JaMarcus Shephard era, Oregon State already looks more dangerous than its record.
Last year’s team went to Lubbock and got buried by Texas Tech. This year’s team had the Red Raiders trailing in the fourth quarter and was a couple of late possessions away from one of the biggest upsets of the young college football season.
That’s not nothing.
The Beavers are 0-2, and eventually the record has to start reflecting the improvement. But if Saturday provided a glimpse of where this offense is headed, Oregon State might be a much bigger problem in the Pac-12 than anyone expected a few weeks ago.
For the first time this season, 0-2 doesn’t feel quite as bad as it looks.
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