September 28, 2007

Stat Of The Week: Oregon State

This week's Stat of the Week is probably pretty obvious. Let's first review last week. The Stat of the Week last week - the key to winning the game for our Bruins - was again on the money. We thought that if our Bruins kept the game close at the half that you could rest assured that we would win the game, despite Karl Dorrell's inability to adjust well after halftime, because this team only needed to know that it could win. Had we gone down by 2 touchdowns the team would have imploded for the game and the season. Thankfully that did not happen. The teams went into the locker tied 10-10, leaving the Rose Bowl crowd a little uneasy, but we left the game with the win 44-31.

This week we think the key to winning this game will be turnover margin. If we win the turnover battle by 2 or more then we will win this game. OSU is among the nation's worst turnover margin teams, ranking at #113, with -2 per game. Their biggest problem is at QB, where they have a young first year starter in Sean Canfield who is tied for the nation's worst in INTs at 9. He threw 5 last week in a loss to Arizona State. It will be raining in Corvalis tonight and possibly in the morning on gameday, with cloudy skies forecast for gametime. That could make the field wet and lead to turnovers and possibly penalties. We need to be positive in the turnover category to gain the advantage in this game because OSU is a disciplined team that doesn't get penalized (5.75 per) and is accustomed to the wet conditions.

But while our defense is salivating at the opportunity of picking off Canfield, the danger lies precisely in going for the pick. OSU has a very good passing game, aside from the turnovers and poor efficiency, and ranks among the best in the nation in production (#23, 289.8). We, on the other hand, have one of the worst passing defenses (#110, 304.25). Walker always seems to have our guys out of position. If our guys are looking to do what Keyes did last week we could get burned badly. Also, Oregon State is among the nations best in sacks allowed, allowing only 1.5 per game. We need to get to the QB early to throw him off (like Booty last year against SuC). We have made every JV QB that we have played this year look like a Heisman candidate and that cannot happen this game if we expect to win. The combination of giving a top passing game QB time and our DBs and LBs getting burned by going for an INT could spell disaster - big play disaster. That is why the turnover margin is extra key to this game.

But we fully expect our team to be ready and to play a great game. Karl Dorrell said so: