Colorado upsets Oregon State, 37-34

Oregon State lost an excruciating game in Boulder, Colorado Saturday night. Credit to Colorado who have won back-to-back home games. Their offensive line dominated Oregon State as Colorado out-rushed the Beavers at home. Colorado’s much-maligned offense generated 392 yards of offense and were able to walk away with the win in double overtime. Here’s how it all unfolded:

FIRST HALF

The Beavers started slowly once more, as they quickly found themselves down 10-0. Colorado’s quarterback, Brendon Lewis, was slicing up Oregon State’s defense for big games and the offense looked out of sorts. The Beavers started to pick it up after the first quarter and even hit a field goal at the half to make it a three-point game. 13-10 Colorado.

SECOND HALF

The Beavers started the 2nd half with a quick three-and-out and on their next possession a turnover on downs. Colorado took advantage of the decent field position and scored another touchdown to double up the Beavs 20-10. Oregon State answered with back-to-back touchdown drives and snatched the lead 24-20. At this point, it looked like the Beavers would assert their will on Colorado and be able to walk away with a victory, but Colorado would not go away. On a third-and-15 Colorado Brendon Lewis hit Montana Lemonious-Craig for a touchdown with just over 2 minutes remaining. Oregon State drove down the field and settled for a field goal with less than 45 seconds left. Everett Hayes missed the 51-yarder and all hope seemed lost. But the Beavers got a quick three-and-out utilizing all their timeouts and Anthony Gould gave them a shot with a good punt return. A quick pass to Gould set up Hayes for another huge field goal attempt, but this time at 60-yarder. Hayes drilled the field goal (with plenty of room to spare) and set an Oregon State record while sending the game to overtime!

OVERTIME

In overtime Oregon State quickly gave up a touchdown to down 34-27. The Beavers answered with a touchdown of their own thanks to a B.J. Baylor direct snap that was way off, but he snagged it one-handed and walked into the endzone. After tying it up Oregon State switched ends of the field and immediately were hit with a holding penalty. The Beavs couldn’t recover after the 1st-and-20 into a short field and had to settle for another field goal. This time the 46-yard field goal was just missed by Hayes opening the door for Colorado to win it. They played it conservatively and their kicker Cole Becker was able to be the hero as Colorado won 37-34.

TAKEAWAYS

• Horrendous loss for Oregon State. Outside of Trey Lowe, no one had a great game.
• The Beavers will now need to beat at least one of: Stanford, ASU & Oregon to become bowl-eligible (not ideal after dropping games against Cal and Colorado).
• Jarek Broussard is a great running back (2020 offensive player of the year). But he had not run for over 100 yards this season, until he went for 151 against Oregon State.
• Chance Nolan missed a bunch of throws and B.J. Baylor (despite running for 98 yards) never got going quite like Beaver fans expected. Despite all of that I don’t think turning to Sam Noyer is the answer. When the Beaver offense is in rhythm they can still look good, it’s just been far to inconsistent these past two weeks.
• Turnovers and penalties have been killers in Oregon State’s Pac-12 losses this season.
• The Beavers are good enough to win every week, but not nearly enough to win without bringing their ‘A’ game. Back to the drawing board as Oregon State returns home hoping to become bowl-eligible.