BFS Story Archive

BEAVERS TRAVEL TO SIN CITY

9-11-2009 - The Oregon State University Football team travels to "Sin City" today to face Mountain West Conference Title Hopeful UNLV in a 8pm game Saturday night at Sam Boyd Stadium. The expected temperature at game time is 90 degrees.

The Beavers are coming off a solid performance in their opener vs Portland St. 34-7 where the Rodgers brothers once again dominated the offensive stats. The two brothers scored all 4 touchdowns for the Beavers and accounted for all offensive yards in the first quarter. Quizz had 103 yards on 16 carries and also had 4 receptions for 32 yards in a half and one play. James Rodgers caught two balls for 95 yards and carried the ball 2 times for 23 yards.

Sean Canfields trimmer self look good in the pocket and I felt he threw the ball with confidence. Sean play a half and one play as well and finished the game 8-11 for 158 yards and 1 td. Ryan Katz replaced Canfield after the first play of the second half and finished the day 7-12 for 124 yards.

UNLV opened their season at home against Sacramento State and won 38-3. UNLV is expected to contend for the Mountain West Title this season and is expected to win 8 or 9 games. The Rebels stats from their first game are very similar to the Beavers. UNLV's leading rusher (Trotter) carried the ball 16 times for 102 yards and 3 TD's. Their leading receiver (Anthony) caught two balls for 73 yards and a TD. Sac. St. plays in the same conference as Portland St. so this should be a good measure of the UNLV team and we should expect this to be a close hard fought game that the Beavers will really need to be well prepared for and focused at game time.

Both teams played Big Sky Conference teams last weekend so the comparison of stats is obvious. The only thing we do not know is how long UNLV starters played vs the Beavers starters leaving one play into the second half. UNLV won more categories then the Beavers did but many of those were very close and could have gone the other way if the Beaver starters played longer into the game. The big stats are the defense, the Beavers did better (as expected) vs the run but UNLV really shut down Sac. St. in the air. The Beavers gave up 272 yards in the air to Portland St. which could show a real weakness in the Beavers defense. However, PSU is a run and shoot team that pushes most of it's offense through the air so that stat can be skewed.

Another stat that stands out to me is the lack of sacks by the Beavers on the PSU quarterbacks. The Beavers will have to turn up the pressure on UNLV quarterback to help out the DB's.

UNLV scored 21 of their 38 points in the forth quarter and scored touchdowns on their last 4 drives of the game. UNLV scored 28 points late but were only up10-3 at halftime. So take that as you want.

 

BY THE NUMBERS

KEYS	STATISTIC	OSU	UNLV	Advantage
.	Records	1-0 (0-0)	1-0 (0-0)	TIE
.	Scoring Offense	34	38	UNLV
.	Scoring Defense	7	3	UNLV
.	Total Offense	433	466	UNLV
.	Total Defense	351	228	UNLV
.	Rushing Offense	151	216	UNLV
.	Rushing Defense	77	129	OSU
.	Passing Offense	282	250	OSU
.	Passing Defense	272	99	UNLV
.	Pass Efficiency	*	*	*
.	Pass Defense Efficiency	*	*	*
.	Kickoff Returns	39.5	31	OSU
.	Punt Return Average	1.5	8.6	UNLV
.	Interceptions	0	1	UNLV
.	Punting	45.7	45.0	TIE
.	Kickoff Coverage	17.9	17.0	TIE
.	Field Goals	2/2=1.00	1/1=1.0	TIE
.	PAT Kicking	4/4=1.00	5/5=1.0	TIE
.	Sacks by	0	1	UNLV
.	Sacks Against	2	2	TIE
.	First Downs	18	21	UNLV
.	Opponent First Downs	7	12	OSU
.	3rd Down Conversions	8/14=.571	5/9=.555	OSU
.	3rd Down Defense	.40	.38	UNLV
.	4th Down Conversions	1/1	0/1	OSU
.	4th Down Defense	0/2	0/1	TIE
.	Penalties	34	30	UNLV
.	Time of Possession	29.38	30.22	UNLV
.	Turnover Margin	+1	+1	TIE
.	Red Zone Offense	.75	*	*
.	Red Zone Defense	.50	*	*
.	Home Field Advantage	NO	YES	UNLV
32	Totals	6	14	UNLV

 

THE BOTTOM LINE

The Beavers will have to come out prepared and ready to go. They cannot be looking past UNLV to Cincinnati or they will lose this game. UNLV has a lot of weapons on offense and a solid defense that will test the passing games ability to make the plays. The Beavers offensive line will have to give Canfield time to find the open receiver in order to get the passing attack in gear. The O-line will also have to open holes for Quizz to run threw. However I believe that the Beavers ground game will thrive against UNLV and force them to commit a greater number of players into the box to try and stop the run. That should open up the passing game and give the Beavers what they need to win. But the Beavers defense is going to have to shut down the UNLV passing game while not allowing the Rebels to establish the rushing game. That means the new Beavers secondary will have to step up their game in order to handle the one on one match ups that coach Banker will have them in much of the game. Look for the Rodgers Brothers to once again dominate the offensive end of the game but l look for Damola Adeniji to have a breakout game for the Beavers.

FINAL SCORE

BEAVERS 38
UNLV REBELS 27

GO BEAVERS!

BFS