College Football Predictions – Oregon St Beavers 2018 NCAA Football Preview
2017 Recap
Record – 1-11
ATS – 3-8-1
Yikes.
The Beavers managed just a single win last season and it came vs FCS foe Portland St in week two (35-32). They got destroyed in four consecutive weeks after that “big” win and HC Gary Anderson called it quits. CB coach Cory Hall took over as the interim HC and got the team playing inspired football. They came within a hair of SHOCKING the WORLD in back-to-back weeks (Colorado, Stanford), and then slid into the abyss for the remainder of the season. Oregon pasted them 69-10 in the season finale and rumor has it they just scored again.
New HC Jonathan Smith has a tough job ahead of him. What can we expect in 2018?
2018 MEGALOCKS Opening Power Rating
North Division – #6
PAC 12 – #12
Oregon St Beavers 2018 Outlook
OFFENSE
The QB battle will be sorted out during fall camp and the hope is that they can cobble together better production than they got last season (#9 PAC 12 passing offense, last in passing efficiency). Jake Luton suffered a season ending injury fairly early in the 2017 campaign and is the slight favorite to regain the starting gig. Other options include JC transfer Jack Colletto and junior Conor Blount who had a pair of TD passes in the spring game.
MEGALOCKS Nation is going to miss the hard running / breakaway speed combo of Ryan Nall (UFA – Bears) and it is a mystery as far as what kind of talent they have in the running back group. Their top two pass catchers from last year’s team are both back (TE Noah Togiai, WR Timmy Hernandez) but neither of them had over 500 yards receiving in 2017. The best news is that the offensive line returns 4/5 starters and they did a decent job in pass protection last season and paved the way for 138 rushing YPG and 4.0 yards per carry.
The Beavers tallied 20.7 PPG last season (dead last PAC 12) and we think its unreasonable to expect much more out of the group.
DEFENSE
It was quite the DEBACLE last year as the Beavers yielded 43.0 PPG which was the worst performance in team history and it ranked them #128 (!) in the FBS (Kansas, East Carolina). In fact, the defense has been gross for the last three seasons as they have been ripped apart by the run and the pass (not optimal), while achieving no PENETRATION to speak of at all (14,18,17 sacks L3Y). Oregon St returns 8 starters to the stop unit but the front seven appears to be the weakest in the PAC 12 on paper. The secondary returns 4/4 starters and should be good enough to stop teams from passing at will, BUT they will need to get some kind of heat on the QB or it will be another LONNNNNG season for the defense. Color us skeptical for now.
SPECIAL TEAMS
PK Jordan Choukair was only 12/19 on FG attempts but he was 9/10 from inside 40 yards. The Beavers were awful in net punting and in the return game last season. It’s hard to imagine much improvement this year.
Schedule Analysis
Overall – It’s pretty nasty, yo. Starting with Ohio St has to be a joke. Amirite? Their final non-conference game is a road trip vs an explosive Nevada squad. They play Stanford and Washington on the road and draw USC from the South.
Potential ATS Trouble Spot – at Nevada (Sept 15). Oregon St hasn’t won a road game since 2014. Nevada is going to score a lot in this one. PAC 12 play is on deck for the Beavers.
Season Win Total
Over 2.5 -120
Under 2.5 -110
MEGALOCKS says:
Neutral stance for the moment. You REALLY have to think a team is beyond the realm of pathetic to take the under on a 2.5 win line. We count 4 or 5 legitimately winnable games. How many will they actually get? Hard to say. If you really needed to throw some spare change around it would probably be a higher percentage play to take the over as crazy as that sounds.
MEGAmazing Tidbits
The Beavers’ only Rose Bowl victory came in 1941 when they slithered by Duke 20-16.
Oregon St is one of only two schools (Hawaii) that can claim a PAIR of Pineapple Bowl victories (1940, 1949).
MEGALOCKS ATS Value Rating (10) 3.5
MEGALOCKS says:
Overall, we give the BEAVERS a 3.5 ATS Value Rating (Below Average) this season.
There’s no easy way to say it. This is going to be a struggle. A gradual rebuild has to take place and there is no better time than the present. The good news is that there may be a SURPRISE PACKAGE hiding in the QB unit and the offensive line should be decent. The defense will be marginally better. Saying all of that, we suppose it’s not impossible to see anywhere from one to four wins.
Oregon St has had three absolutely rotten seasons vs the point spread over the last four years. The Oregon St FADE TRAIN made a lot of money last year and the Beavers should be catching tons of points most of the time in 2018.
A team that is consistently a huge underdog will eventually start covering some of those games, if even by accident. The message? Don’t go full blown FADE MODE with this team.
Want more Oregon St Football ?
WEBSITE
http://www.osubeavers.com/index.aspx?path=football
FORUM
Free
http://bennyshouse.freeforums.net/board/3/men-iron
Restricted
http://www.scout.com/college/oregon-state/forums/1704-beaver-football
https://oregonstate.forums.rivals.com/forums/beaver-central.8/
NEWS
http://www.oregonlive.com/beaversfootball/
http://bleacherreport.com/oregon-state-football
http://www.buildingthedam.com/football
TWITTER
Hashtag – #GoBeavs
Accounts to follow