The Oregon State offense scored over 50 points for the third time in four games in a 66-14 victory over San Diego State on Saturday afternoon.\u00a0The Beavers improved to 4-2 on the year and 2-0 in Pac-12 play with the win in front of a home crowd in Corvallis\u2019 Reser Stadium. <\/p>\n
Now halfway through the regular season, Oregon State is on a four-game winning streak after dropping its first two matchups.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m proud of our team \u2013 how we were able to pace the game and control the game,\u201d Oregon State Head Coach JaMarcus Shephard said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
OSU\u2019s quarterback and wide receiver duo of Braden Atkinson and Jesse Legree, who both entered the game in the NCAA\u2019s top two in passing and receiving yards, respectively, each put up gaudy stat lines for yet another week. Atkinson passed for 409 yards, five touchdowns and no interceptions with a 76% completion rate. Legree scored three times in a 10-catch, 191-yard performance.<\/p>\n
The wide receiver, now gunning for his sixth-consecutive Pac-12 Freshman of the Year award, hit a Heisman pose in celebration following his second score, a 71-yard grab early in the third quarter that put the Beavers up 45-7.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m making history every week. You\u2019re not seeing every person do this,\u201d Legree said regarding his case for the trophy. \u201cTo have the quarterback that I have to put me in this position is just great.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Legree is now the first receiver in school history to record six-straight 100-yard games.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, the Beavers\u2019 first score of the game didn\u2019t come from Legree, or any OSU receiver, tight end or running back. Just over five minutes into the game, Atkinson threw a two-yard touchdown pass to fellow quarterback Maalik Murphy, who lined up at tight end before running into the right flat.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cJust super excited to see him, just constantly changing his role,\u201d Shephard said of Murphy. \u201cHe\u2019s asking to do more and more and more, even away from the quarterback position itself, and I\u2019m just very proud of how he has handled himself throughout this entire season.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be here for (the team), I wouldn\u2019t want it any other way,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cI\u2019m happy with the team. I\u2019m happy with what we\u2019re doing right now, and we just got to keep chipping at it because we\u2019re not anywhere near where we\u2019re going and where we\u2019re supposed to be.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think (Shephard) is being generous to the receivers,\u201d Murphy quipped postgame. \u201cI think I\u2019m No. 1. I\u2019ve been catching the ball my whole life, so it kind of comes easy with reps.\u201d<\/p>\n
With Oregon State leading 14-0 in the first quarter and then 38-7 at the half, the Beavers cycled through their depth chart on offense beginning midway through the third quarter. Fourteen different players caught passes. Eight recorded carries.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo get 14 (players with catches), that\u2019s incredible,\u201d Shephard said. \u201cIt\u2019s a testament to our players buying into the work. \u2026 They keep looking at me and saying, \u2018Coach, we went through hell, and now we\u2019re on the other side of it.\u2019 So look, we\u2019re gonna push you to your limit here at Oregon State. We\u2019re gonna give you every opportunity to touch the football.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Only half of the points Oregon State allowed on Saturday were given up by the Beaver defense, with San Diego State\u2019s Jaylon Hawkins recording a 97-yard kickoff return touchdown midway through the third quarter to bring the Aztecs\u2019 point total to 14.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But on defense, the Beavers allowed just 147 total yards to the San Diego State offense, finishing the game with two straight tackles for loss. The Aztecs swapped quarterbacks from starter Jayden Denegal to backup Draiden Trudeau in the third quarter, with the latter throwing the lone interception of the day to OSU linebacker Jabari Odoemenem.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw that (Trudeau) was staring me down, so I actually closed back inside and picked the ball off,\u201d Odoemenem said. \u201cSo shout out my teammates too for hauling out and getting a great block (on the return) \u2026 my D-line for getting a great rush and everything else after that. So I appreciate my coaches and teammates.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think our defensive staff has done an unbelievable job to this point,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s so hard sometimes because our offense tends to get a lot of the TV time and whatnot, but our defense \u2013 they don\u2019t get a lot of TV time because they were getting three and outs today.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we brought (Defensive Line Coach and Defensive Run Game Coordinator) Mark Hagen onto this staff, I knew that Coach Hagen would get our defensive line to play at its very best,\u201d Shephard said. \u201cHe was going to get every single ounce of what they had out of them. I knew that without a shadow of a doubt.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, Shephard emphasized areas where the Beavers need to improve following the win over an Aztecs team that listed 14 players out and another 14 as game-time decisions on its injury report ahead of Saturday\u2019s game; SDSU has dealt with a team mumps outbreak in recent weeks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can get better. Period. You can run the route better. You can attack the ball vertically better,\u201d Shephard said. \u201cI\u2019m not saying it to have fun, to laugh, to joke about it: There are plenty of opportunities for us to get better as a football team, and we will push the envelope to do that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Odoemenem said the score was still \u201c0-0 in our eyes\u201d at the half. \u201cGo out there and just execute at a high level because that\u2019s the standard here,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll tell you what, I thought our players had a lot of intelligence and control throughout the game today, and right now they have to do an outstanding job of being generous with one another on and off the field,\u201d Shephard said. \u201cI think that\u2019s really important for them to understand the time that they\u2019re spending with one another \u2013 that they\u2019ll never get this back.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is 2026. We\u2019ll never be together again after the season is over,\u201d the coach added. \u201cGuys will graduate and move on, and you know what? They need to be generous with each other with their time on and off the field.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Entering the second half of the regular season, the Beavers will next face Washington State University in Corvallis on Oct. 17.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe saw why we couldn\u2019t wait to get back to Reser,\u201d Shephard said of the home game environment. \u201cI think today we showed what type of university we have, what type of community we have here in Corvallis, and I\u2019ll tell you what: that student section was tremendous. I loved that they showed up early. It was totally packed.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Shephard described the crowd as \u201coxygen\u201d \u2013 but there were still empty patches of seats in Reser throughout Saturday\u2019s game.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOur team could feel the energy in the stadium when we got out there,\u201d the coach said. \u201cNot only do we have room for more as a football team \u2013 we got room for more fans to keep coming on here to Reser, OK? So come on, be a part of it.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Oregon State offense scored over 50 points for the third time in four games in a 66-14…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":493102,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[74,76,75],"class_list":["post-493101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/493102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}