22 days until kickoff vs. Eastern Washington...
EWU Factoid: The Eagles are pulling a very rare trifecta this year -- they are playing three different teams from the state of Oregon without playing the Ducks. After playing at Reser on August 31st, they return home to take on the Western Oregon University Wolves the next week. I wonder if any team has played those two schools back to back in the last 50 years. Finally, to close out the season, they host the Portland State Vikings on November 23rd.
With fall camp opening up, all teams are seeing more media attention, including Eastern Washington. Jim Allen of the Spokane Spokesman-Review has a look at the first days of EWU's fall camp. The Eagles return only 13 starters from last year, so Allen takes a look at some of the key losses from last year, and who might fill those openings. And finally, we have five EWU storylines to watch.
As a reminder, although the Eagles are a member of the FCS, they are a very good FCS team. They won the national title in 2010, and made the national semifinals last year. This year, they are picked second in the Big Sky. The FCS preseason poll will be released next Tuesday, it will be interesting to see where they fall. They are a lot better than Nicholls State, and they are better than Sacramento State was two years ago. It's distinctly possible this is the best team OSU will see at Reser until Stanford; that result is probably a combination of EWU being a very good FCS team and Hawaii and Colorado being very bad FBS teams.
In other Beaver opponent news, Hawaii fired their offensive coordinator at the start of fall practice, which is a very weird time for such a thing. It looks like Norm Chow will be handling all the play calling this year, which is probably a good thing for Hawaii considering his history as an offensive coordinator. Random Norm Chow fact: his eldest son, Carter, is his agent.
Lindsey Schnell of the Oregonian talks about the Beavers' older receivers mentoring the younger ones. Her report from the first day of contact practice is a positive one, although Larry Scott got pantsed. Safety Steven Christian is still trying to recover from mono. I once thought I had mono for an entire year. It turned out I was just really bored.
The other half of O-Live's Pac-12 team, Connor Letourneau, has a feature on Connor Hamlett. There's a lot of Connor going on right now, it would appear. Letourneau also has a review of Thursday's practice, which featured some hits that were harder than Mike Riley would like. Vaz threw two ugly interceptions, if that means anything.
Kevin Hampton of the Gazette-Times takes a look at the changes OSU has made in the running game since the fiasco of 2011. A key part of that is, of course, personnel. He also reviews OSU's first day of contact practice. He notes that Riley got some information on Tulimasealii, Peko and Tuaau's eligibility, but didn't want to elaborate at this point. He hopes to know more early next week.
Rashaad Reynolds joined KXL for a radio interview.
Former Beaver and Aztec Ryan Katz is in Denver Bronco training camp, he talks about attending QB meetings with Peyton Manning and other things in an interview with 750 the Game's Chad Doing. A good quote from Katz about his experience at OSU:
"My heart and everything was at Oregon State and I gave my all there. Unfortunately it didn’t work out, but it just teaches you how to grow. The ball doesn’t always bounce in your favor and you’ve just got to keep rolling with the punches and keep it going. So that’s what I did and that’s what I’m going to continue to do in life."
He shows up at #4 on the Broncos' depth chart right now, so he's presumably fighting fellow rookie Zac Dysert (Miami, OH) for the #3 spot behind Manning and Brock Osweiler. Best of luck to him with the Broncos.
Jesuit's Joey Alfieri has narrowed his list down to four schools -- Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford, Washington. He plans to announce his decision Saturday on his Twitter account. Speculation is pointing at Stanford for a variety of reasons. He also drew interest from Harvard and Yale, so it seems an academic element is likely to be part of the equation, which does not favor OSU (...or U of O....or UW).
Erik McKinney of ESPN.com has a Pac-12 recruiting update, and mentions that Jalen Brown (Rivals Top 100 4-star WR from Phoenix, AZ) is looking at five teams for official visits -- Oregon, Oregon State, Vanderbilt, Wisconsin and one more TBD. The good news here for Oregon State is Brown is reportedly very interested in playing a pro style system, which the Beavers do very well.
Dylan Davis' season came to an end Thursday night with a loss in the Cape Cod League playoffs.
The Pac-12 preseason Volleyball poll is out. The good news is Oregon State can't possibly finish worse than expected.
Your short video of the day:
She will always be there, but your beer will get warm.
Be sure to vote in today's poll, and add any links I missed to the comments section below.