Oregon St. Working On "Getting It Fixed"

Having been called out from dinner at the restaurant Saturday night after the defensive breakdown that resulted in a 49-46 loss to to Eastern Washington by Jordan Poyer for a 5 minute chewing out, Oregon St. cornerback Sean Martin, who took the All-American's spot in the lineup after Poyer departed for Philadelphia and the NFL, was well aware that, as Poyer put it before moving on to a coaching session about positioning and leverage, the performance was "unacceptable, and it better get fixed."

"Throughout the game, we lost focus, and then we got beat," Martin said. "They exposed us."

Defensive coordinator Mark Banker said "It became obvious in watching replays of the game that guys' eyes were not in the right spot, but more importantly, they couldn't move on after a bad play. Eastern Washington would gash the defense for a big gain, which will happen, and guys were so mad they couldn't focus on the next play. Then those problems compounded."

Cornerback Rashaad Reynolds called a players only team meeting to reiterate Poyer's message. Martin believes the Beaver defense will respond.

"I've watched the film 4 times," Martin said after practice. "I know exactly what went wrong. Usually, you can tell right after a play where you should have been. But we've got it fixed in practice this week."

Against a less threatening Hawaii passing attack, we'll only begin to learn how effective Poyer's motivational tongue-lashing was on Saturday, but at the very least, we now have several hours of training videos to make corrections from.

Center Isaac Seumalo, who missed the Eastern Washington game with a bruised knee, was back in action at practice, and head coach Mike Riley is optimistic that Seumalo will be available for the Hawaii game. Josh Mitchell, who filled in well for Seumalo, has been held out of practice a couple of days this week, but Riley expects him to be back as well.

Punter Keith Kostol, who also missed last week's game, was punting at practice today as well, and is expected to be back Saturday, though Tim McMullen, who handled the punting chores against Eastern Washington, is still listed first on this week's depth chart.

Otherwise, there no real shakeup, as OL Gavin Andrews is still out with mononucleosis, and Roman Sapolu will again start at right guard.

Another player Beaver fans and players alike were glad to see practicing again is OLB D.J. Alexander. Riley said Alexander, who suffered a sprained knee midway through camp, won't play this week, but is ahead of schedule with his recovery. Alexander looks good to return to the lineup for the Utah trip next week.

Andy_Wooldridge@yahoo.com