Beavers Bulldozed by Huskies in 52-7 loss

This 52-7 game was over before it even started. Oregon State was bruised, battered and bulldozed in the loss to Washington, showing little in terms of talent or desire. It was another startlingly bad performance under HC Gary Anderson. The OSU defense gave up 452 yards of offense to the Huskies. It would have looked much, much worse if UW had not had the game in the bag by the end of the first quarter, and the Dawg coaches not called off the dawgs at halftime.

UW started the game with a lateral throw from Marvin Hall Jr. to Chico McClatcher, above, on the opening kickoff return, setting up ideal field position for their first drive. That set them up to strike, with Freshman QB Jake Browning immediately finding Brayden Lenius wide open in the end zone for a 14 yard touchdown. It was the first display of incompetency by a secondary that has been decimated by injury.

Browning, above, completed 18-20 passes for 211 yards and four touchdowns before taking an early seat in the third quarter.

Nick Mitchell and the Beaver offense countered with a 3-and-out. Mitchell threw a horrible pass into double coverage that was nearly intercepted, below.

Storm Barrs-Woods lost two yards on a draw play and then Mitchell missed a wide-open Victor Bolden on third down for what would have been a big gain. The series was the game in a nutshell. While UW spread their wings and zoomed around the field, OSU fell flat on their faces. Mitchell was thankfully benched right before the end of the first half, finishing with zero yards on 0-7 passing. Marcus McMaryion was once again on clean-up duty, leading the Beavers to a touchdown, but that was against UW's backups. He really did not play much better than Mitchell, completing 8-16 passes for 109 yards with a touchdown and an interception.

Using more trickery, the Huskies did not have any difficulty finding pay dirt again. On 1st-and-goal, they showed a sweep right but pitched it left to WR Chico McClatcher, scoring with ease, above.

The Beavers once again countered UW's scoring drive with a 3-and-out. They punted, and Dante Pettis returned for an 89-yard touchdown, above. UW was three scores deep on the Beavers with 5:05 remaining in the first quarter. It was that kind of day for OSU.

Paul Lucas put his explosiveness on display with a 76-yard sprint up the sidelines to "jumpstart" the Beaver offense, above. Washington's Travis Feeney never gave up on the play though, and it would ultimately save 7 points, and at a point before the game wasn't yet totally out of hand, was a big turning point, deflating any thought of an Oregon State rally and giving Washington a big lift.

That still put OSU on the eight yard line, but Mitchell's ineptitude proved too difficult to overcome. Villamin nearly scored on first down, but was ruled out of bounds. The Beavers were then brought back for holding, and then Mitchell completely whiffed on the next two throws. OSU missed then subsequent field goal, which was not too much of a crusher considering the Beavers had shown they weren't going to be competing anyways today. Despite Lucas' nice play, he only got three more carries before banging up his knee, and finished his night with four carries for 82 yards, and an ice pack applied to that knee. Ryan Nall was a non-factor, only getting seven carries for 29 yards and catching a pass for 37 yards.

The Huskies raced down the field once more to make the score 28-0, on Browning's 18 yard pass to a wide open Joshua Perkins, above. To recap, OSU gave up four touchdowns in the first quarter all while gaining six yards of offense outside of Lucas' run. It was also a record first quarter scoring barrage for Washington.

That was the game! The rest of the it went like blowouts do; the Huskies got an extended look at their backups, all of the fans left hours before the game ended, and the Beavers floundered until the final horn blared.

Washington added 17 second quarter points, and the 45 points tied a Husky team record for the most points they have ever scored in a half. This team has also already given up more points that any other Oregon State team ever, and in 11 games, not 12, 13, or even 14.

This game was a lot like watching a freshmen team practice scrimmage the varsity team. Note that I said freshmen and not JV. When JV teams scrimmage the varsity, they might actually make a few plays and not be completely out of their element. Whereas the freshmen team knows they're going to get their asses kicked, so they don't really try and just mostly want to get the whole thing over with. The play on the field suggested that was the Beavers' mindset tonight. It was a lifeless, dreadful performance in front of the half-filled Reser Stadium.

It was especially discouraging to see them play this way against a similarly young and inexperienced football team. Washington is not a very good football team, at least offensively, but they still made the Beavers look like a bunch of fifth graders.

The quarterback play for OSU was especially horrendous. I seriously wondered why former quarterback and converted TE Brent VanderVeen was not put in, because anything would have been better than the Mitchell and McMaryion tandem tonight.

It will now be an uphill battle for coach Anderson to gain the trust back of fans. Besides a few high-profile recruits, Anderson has made very little progress so far, and this game will be burned in the back of more than a few people's minds.

OSU now 2-9, and 0-8 in conference, takes on Oregon next week to end the season. That game is not going to be fun.

(Photos by Andy Wooldridge)