...::He said.

.She said::...

...::THE OFFENSE

SHE SAYS::...

The first half was a thing of beauty all away around. And it all started up
front. They've taken their knocks and are still a bit of a work in progress,
but kudos to the offensive line.

Alex Linnenkohl was solid against a big stout Stanford line and his blocking
and leadership was the building block for the day's success. Cav's Crew are
coming together, and I think the Beavers are well on their way to having one
of the best line's in recent memory next year.

Of course what Linnenkohl and the guys up front did was open up lanes for Quizz,
who quite frankly was amazing.

Which leads me to the next facet of the offense, the passing game. Sean Canfield
looked poised and confident as he led the team and he didn't focus on any receiver,
instead hitting seven different ones to tally 290 yards.

While the story on offense was Quizz and Quon (who incidentally accounted for
359 of the Beavers 463 yards), so many others stepped up at key moments that
it really was a team effort.

This unit is starting to fire on all cylinders, but they'll need to continue
their improvement as the season continues to be a battle week in and week out.

SHE SAYS-GRADE: A

189 rushing yards. 82 receiving yards. 4 TD's. What more could one player do?
If Quizz doesn't get Pac 10 Player Offensive of the Week (he already got Rivals
National Player of the Week), I'll be stunned.

Canfield had a stellar day too. With a 69% completion rate, 1 TD and 0 interceptions,
he managed the game quite well.

Big shout out to Damola Adeneji. He had 5 big catches and is really becoming
a solid option on any passing down. Also nice to see Casey Kjos healthy and
productive.

Yes, the offense is really rounding into the group I thought we would have
seen out of the gate. If they can continue to improve at this pace, the season
could be a special one.

HE SAYS-GRADE: A-

The defense did what they needed to do…contain Toby Gerhart (who is REALLY
good by the way). Going into the game, I felt that if the defense was able to
stop Gerhart, Stanford would be left with nothing. Boy was I wrong.

They are a great team and their redshirt freshman quarterback was mighty impressive.
Stanford was able to score quickly when they needed to, but the Beaver defense
held strong.

I liked the safety tandem of Cameron Collins and Lance Mitchell. They are very
athletic and could grow into very talented safeties in the years ahead.

The defensive line did well against Stanford's "Big 7" and while
Stephen Paea didn't register a ton of stats, he was in on almost every play.
Gabe Miller is also developing into a force at defensive end. He had an impressive
sack and I feel could make a push for starting duties here soon.

Watching the replay I am a bit stymied as to why Brandon Hardin is not playing
more. I read in the Oregonian that the coaches feel he passive in practice…ok,
well he sure doesn't look passive in the games.

In reserve action he registered as many tackles as starters Tim Clark and James
Dockery combined. Clark does bring great experience and knowledge to the secondary,
but Hardin's speed and physical play should make it hard for coaches to keep
him off the field.

SHE SAYS-GRADE: B

OK, so the defense gave up 28 points. On the surface, and when I left the game,
I felt it wasn't the strongest performance that I had seen.

But a day later, and after rewatching the game, I am much more impressed. When
the game was on the line in the 1st half, the Beaver D gave up 7 points.

Stanford gained 137 yards in that half. The game was effectively over at halftime
thanks to both the Beaver offense AND the defense.

Yes, they gave up a couple scores in the second half. But remember, Stanford
is still a solid team. And they were desperate. They kept playing their first
string. Oregon State starting subbing pretty liberally, especially late in the
fourth quarter when the Cardinal drove 99 yards for their final score.

Cameron Collins, as we pointed out with our Giant Killer Award, had a huge
day.

Still improving, and still work to be done, but I like what I saw.

HE SAYS-GRADE: B+

Great returns by Quon…he is going to bust one this year. Count on it.

Johnny Hekker had a nice day punting, especially since he didn't get into the
game until the second half. He also displayed what looked to be great acting
on the roughing the kicker call. It didn't look like he was touched, but maybe
I was wrong.

Coach Read had the troop ready with a solid plan to contain Stanford's good
return game and Kahut was ready in short notice to close out the first half
with his lone field goal of the night. It could have been chaotic, but it went
off flawless.

SHE SAYS-GRADE: A

After 5 games, Stanford was #1 in the country in kickoff returns, averaging
over 41 yards per return. After 6 games, they are no longer #1. And their average
went down over 7.5 yards. Nice job by the Beaver coverage team to bottle that
up.

HE SAYS-GRADE: A

How can anyone complain? It was a beautiful fall day in Corvallis and the Beavers
dominated. They're still in the hunt and did everything they needed to do to
secure a win against a very good Stanford team.

Even when Stanford scored quickly, I never felt they'd get back into the game.
The offense was sharp and the defense was ready to stop Gerhart.

Are there areas for improvement…always. But heading into the bye week,
the players and coaches deserve a day or two to savor the win and begin preparing
for USC.

The biggest thing that I can see is finding a way to keep the team in "attack"
mode as they seem to have a quarter that they let off the gas. As we've seen
with USC in the past, if you get the lead, you need to keep the pedal to the
metal or they're going to jump right back into it.

The PAC 10 is wide open at this point. From my view the Beavers have 6 very
winnable games (and 5 of them could be losable too). If they stay healthy and
keep making the strides they are making, things could get very interesting down
the stretch.

SHE SAYS-GRADE: A-

Riley and Company rolled out an excellent game plan and came up Ace's on Saturday.
Been waiting for Quizz in the Wildcat for a couple weeks now and sure enough,
he came up big when they unveiled it.

Anytime you get an opposing coach complaining about a lack of penalty calls
by the refs, you've done something right. Clearly Harbaugh was thoroughly befuddled
if that was his best excuse.

A little surprised we didn't see more fly sweep action, especially in the 2nd
half. There was a fake or two off of the Wildcat formation, but none run that
I can recall. Stanford didn't seem to have the speed to keep up at the edges
and I thought going in this would be a heavily used play.

Also, someone needs to work on clock management…it's an ongoing problem
it seems. The series at the end of the first half was almost a disaster. At
least 10 seconds ticked off before they called their final time out. There should
have been two plays called before they ran the previous one (especially since
it was a running play) had they wanted to save that time out. Otherwise, it
needed to be called immediately.

Overall though, a VERY impressive win. Stanford came in believing the were
Top 25 worthy. Well, it they were, the Beavers proved they definitely are.

HE SAYS-GRADE: A-