Saturday's victory kept the Oregon State Beavers among the undefeated teams — an ever-shrinking group as the season progresses — but their 21-7 win over the Utah Utes included unusual routes to victory, and some underwhelming performances.
Over at Building the Dam, the guys focused on how the Beavers had already used a variety of methods to get to victory this year, and Saturday night was no different.
Utah outgained Oregon State by 81 yards. The Utes had 4 more first downs than the Beavs. They led the time of possession battle by nearly 9 minutes. And yet the Beavers remain undefeated.
The early focus was on an offense that had some trouble out of the gate. Quarterback Cody Vaz was erratic, throwing incompletions on his first two attempts and fumbling the snap on third down. From there, the Utes took over, but as was the case all night, they were unable to capitalize on mistakes.
Throughout the game the Beaver offense looked quite dysfunctional. They traveled just 12 yards in their first drive when Cody Vaz made two bad throws on first and second down, and fumbled the snap on third down, forcing the first of 8 Keith Kostol punts. But, and this was a theme for the game, Utah couldn't capitalize, missing a 42 yard field goal after driving 55 yards down the field.
Despite Utah's inability to capitalize, the team was able to take advantage of what the bloggers saw as a weaker Beavers defense — one that allowed an 88-yard, 10-play drive in the second quarter.
The Utes took advantage of what was a somewhat soft Beaver defense in the second quarter, driving 88 yards on 10 plays and scoring their only points of the day on a 18 yard touchdown. It feels quite weird to write that sentence, as Utah had first and goal from the 3 in the first drive of the second half.