Game Review: BYU

What happened: BYU came into to Corvallis looking to win a game for former Beaver player Bronco Mendenhall. The Cougars, from the opening moments, took advantage of many OSU mistakes to win by ten. However, one look at the stats and it is a miracle the Cougars did not win by 30 or more.

Why the Beaver lost: Simply put, they were destroyed on the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. BYU ran for over 300 yards and held OSU to under 60 yards rushing during the game. QB Sean Mannion was well protected, but the lack of any rush attack left him out on an island to make plays ala ArizonaState. A key moment in the game happened during the first three possessions of the third quarter. After BYU scored on their opening possession, Oregon State had three consecutive turnovers, which after it was all done, the Beavs were still in the game, but missed many opportunities to put points on the board.

BYU was more physical, tackled better, made more plays, and looked like they wanted to win more than the Beavers. What once was a program proud to be labeled "Lunch pail U" for its blue-collar work ethic, now seems soft and intimidated.

Where do the Beavers go from here: I'll answer this in two parts: short-term and long-term. For the short-term, as was said by radio color analyst Jim Wilson after the game, the mystery is gone with this team. They are not going to a bowl, nor will they remain winless. So, if they are truly rebuilding, then some rebuilding needs to take place. Players need to show improvement. Mannion needs to cut down on turnovers. Coverage needs to be better in the secondary. Tackling needs to improve. The list can go on and on. WSU is a winnable game, and one the Beavs should come in fired up for. Utah is another winnable game. I said last week that 4-5 wins would be a successful season. I still believe that is attainable, but not with the performance seen yesterday.

In the big picture, I am renewing my call for either/both OC Danny Langsdorf and DC Mark Banker to be fired. The numbers for Banker cannot be ignored. After his peak year in 2007, his defenses have become progressively softer and worse since. The Beavers put on a clinic for missing tackles yesterday. Many Beaver fans have felt for the last 2-3 seasons that the game has passed Banker by. He has yet to show he can come up with a defense that can defend a mobile QB. To again borrow from Jim Wilson, as he commented a few weeks back about Banker's scheme, "they do nothing (opponents) have to prepare for." To me this is a damming statement about the lack of innovation on the part of Banker. There are no exotic blitz schemes. No implementation of a 3-4, which would seem to help due to our inability to land DT's in recruiting. No difficult zone coverages to read. Just the same man-to-man that has been run since his arrival.

On the offensive side Danny Langsdorf has shown tremendous ability to limit the playmaking ability of his best athletes. I never thought I would see the day that James Rodgers would be irrelevant. That after a long-bomb TD in the 6th game of the year, I would turn to fans next to me and say, "I think that is the first big play on offense all season." Danny has run the offense into the ground, and like Banker, it seems as though the game has passed Danny and Mike Riley by. When Mike arrived in 1997, his offense was innovative. He brought a full pro-style offense to a largely vanilla offensive game that was played then. Since, innovation has occurred in so many different ways on the offensive end that we now seem like Hollywood Video compared to Netflix. Watching us struggle while Oregon's offense consistently has guys running free down the field is frustrating.