Dooley’s Dozen: Looking at Florida’s Las Vegas opponent, the Oregon State Beavers
The good news for Florida’s football team is that the Gators are going to a bowl game, sparing themselves the embarrassments of 2013 (Will Muschamp’s 4-8 season) and 2017 (Jim McElwain’s short season).
The bad news is that Florida drew a team that won its last three games, has a chance to win 10 games for only the third time in school history and is a bad match-up for a depleted Florida team.
Eh, it beats not being in a bowl said Florida fans to Miami and Texas A&M fans.
And it is Vegas baby. Considering that Florida comes in without a quarterback and with two straight losses, maybe it’s best that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
Still, here we go for the last time in the 2022 football season, 12 things you need to know about… the Oregon State Beavers (9-3, 5-3 Pac-12).
The spread has grown
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When the game was first announced Saturday afternoon, the first line that came out was Oregon State giving 2.5 points. That didn’t last for long.
As soon as [autotag]Anthony Richardson[/autotag] announced he was bailing on the game, the spread jumped and keeps going up. There are some books that have Oregon State favored by 10.5 points and the spread may settle in there unless Billy Napier enters the portal.
The bowl history for the Beavers is a thin one
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The school started playing football in 1893 and this is only the 19th bowl game ever. But it is the second in a row. Oregon State has not played in a New Year’s or later bowl game since the 2001 Fiesta Bowl.
That said, the Beavers have played in some awesome stadiums including the Rose Bowl and the last two in state-of-the-art NFL venues. Last year, OSU lost to Utah State in the LA Bowl 24-13 at SoFi Stadium, the site of this year’s national title game.
The coach may be the most underrated in the country
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Jonathan Smith was the quarterback on what was considered the best team ever at Oregon State, that 2000 team that won the Fiesta Bowl (he was the MVP of the bowl game). He stayed out west as an assistant coach before getting the head coaching job in Corvallis.
Smith took over a tough situation and it took him a while to get it turned around. So, the overall record is only 25-31 and 18-25 in the conference, but this is his second straight winning season.
And they are coming in off a high
Ben Lonergan/The Register-Guard
The Beavers trailed archrival Oregon, 31-10, in the final weekend of the season before storming back to win the game also known as the Civil War. That knocked Oregon out of the Pac-12 championship game.
It was Smith’s second win in the game and only the third since 2007. The Beavers won despite three early turnovers and 60 passing yards. They stopped Oregon on all five of its fourth-down tries including a questionable decision late to go for it on their own 29.
The Beavs have a Heisman
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It was won by Terry Baker, the versatile quarterback who finished ahead of LSU’s Jerry Stovall in the final voting. No player from the west had ever won the award but Oregon State sports information director John Eggers mailed a press release to 100 Heisman voters across the country every week extolling the virtues of Baker.
It gets better. He won the Liberty Bowl, then played point guard for an Oregon State team that went to the Final Four, the only player to ever do both.
They also have a quarterback
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Although he wasn’t the starter at the beginning of the season. Chance Nolan was the starter until suffering a concussion in the fifth game.
In came redshirt freshman Ben Gulbranson, a three-star prospect from California, to take over. He finished out the season and threw for 1,290 yards and seven touchdownss. Nolan didn’t get back on the field and this week jumped into the transfer portal.
They like to run the ball
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The Beavers try to stay balanced, but the running game is where the bread gets buttered. Oregon State has 23 more first downs rushing than its opponents and 971 more rushing yards.
OSU has scored 33 touchdowns on the ground and 15 through the air. The quarterbacks have combined for 13 interceptions thrown, which is one reason for the running game.
The guy to watch is a freshman
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His name is Damien Martinez, who was named to the Pac-12 all-freshman team. He needs only 30 rushing yards against Florida to reach 1,000 rushing yards and become only the fifth freshman to do that at Oregon State.
Martinez did leave the Oregon game with a knee injury so keep an eye on that.
The Beavers have two other running backs – both from the Southeast – who have more than 400 rushing yards rushing. Jam Griffin is from Rome, Georgia, and Deshaun Fenwick is from Bradenton.
There are some Florida guys on the team
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And one you may remember. [autotag]Andrew Chatfield[/autotag] was a Gator last season, but only for two games before he decided to transfer to Oregon State and sit out the rest of the season. The outside linebacker had 2.5 sacks in 2020 at UF, but none so far this season.
Oregon State has six other players from the state of Florida on the roster including one from IMG Academy: offensive lineman Dylan Lopez.
Some quick stats on the Beavers
AP Photo/Craig Mitchelldyer
Oregon State ranks 27th in the country in rushing at 199.2 yards per game and 59th in total defense. The Beavers are seventh in the Pac-12 in offense and 38th in the country in third-down conversions.
A couple of things to note: OSU is 14th in the country in special teams efficiency. The Beavs are also at minus-1 in turnover margin thanks in part to those 13 interceptions thrown.
They may be missing a guy, too
AP Photo/Amanda Loman
Florida’s numbers are part of a purge, but Oregon State is in the fifth year of a program build and this game is a big deal to their fans and players. Defensive back Rejzohn Wright has declared for the draft and is projected as a second-round pick.
The team has had several injuries to deal with lately, but time to heal most of them. However, he has not fully committed to playing in the game at the time of publication.
UPDATE: Wright announced he will not be playing in the game on Tuesday evening.
This is a first for the Gators
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Florida has played a Pac-12 team before in a bowl game (losing to UCLA in Hawaii and Washington in Anaheim) but has never played Oregon State.
Florida has played several bowl games west of the Mississippi including a national title win in the Fiesta over Ohio State.
It will be interesting to see how the change in game time to 11:30 PST will affect these guys, although they have time to adjust their mental clocks. The other two games that started before noon this season were an embarrassing loss to Vanderbilt and a big win over Texas A&M.
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