College Football Predictions – Oregon St Beavers 2019 College Football Preview
2018 Recap
Record – 2-10
ATS – 4-8
The good news is that the Beavers doubled their win total. The bad news? They finished with a record of 2-10 and that makes it three times in the past four years that they have won two games or less. It looked like they might go the entire campaign without a win over an FBS foe but they managed to slip by the Buffaloes in OT.
We all know that a lot of work needed to be done. Last year solidified just HOW MUCH work that is going to entail. Jonathan Smith enters his second year in Corvallis and will work to have his team show improvement and maybe pull an upset or two. Let’s examine whether or not that is a realistic possibility.
2019 MEGALOCKS Opening Power Rating
North Division – #6
PAC 12 – #12
Oregon St Beavers 2019 Outlook
OFFENSE
Senior QB Jake Luton definitely has the physical tools (6-7 225) to be a good PAC-12 QB and he completed 62.5% of his passes last season with a decent 10-4 TD to INT ratio. It’s not a well known fact but the Beavers have one of the best 1-2 RB combs in the PAC-12 with exciting sophomore Jermar Jefferson (1,380, 12 TD LY) and Artavis Pierce (168 yards vs Ohio St). The WR group is promising as well with Isaiah Hodgins and Trevon Bradford back for duty. All they did was combine for 115 receptions, over 1,500 yards, and 11 TD catches a season ago. They only return a pair of starters on the offensive line but that includes the LT spot and they added a grad transfer C from Arizona. The Beavers have not scored more than 30 PPG since 2013 (34.8) and they should be able to make a sizeable increase from last year’s output of 26.1 PPG.
DEFENSE
HOT MESS.
We could leave things right there BUT feel that we owe you a bit more detail. The Beavers allowed 45.7 (!) PPG last season which ranked 2nd last in the FBS. They were only ahead of the Connecticut Huskies who fielded LITERALLY one of the worst defenses in the history of college football. So where do we go from here?
They return 9 starters and their top-nine tacklers from a season ago, and while there is a school of thought that says you don’t want players back from a rotten defense, we value experience quite a bit and don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect significant improvement. All bets are off if they can’t find a way to get more PENETRATION as they haven’t bagged 20 sacks since 2014. That seems impossible, yet it’s true. Another piece of good news aside from the experience is the addition of a small handful of JUCO and grad transfers which will add some much-needed depth. We expect the Beavers to improve their defensive PPG by at least a TD this season.
SPECIAL TEAMS
There is continuity across the board. The return units could use some additional spice and PK Jordan Choukair was just 4/10 from FG attempts of 40+ yards. P Daniel Rodriguez is one of the better punters in the conference.
Schedule Analysis
Overall – It’s hard to find too many wins on their schedule even if you consider that they will be an improved team. If they can scrape out a win at Hawaii on September 7th then they should start the season out at 2-1. They get something called Cal Poly in week 3.
Potential ATS Trouble Spot – at Washington St (November 23)
The Beavers have lost five straight to the Cougars and have their big game with Oregon on deck.
Season Win Total
Over 2.5 -140
Under 2.5 +120
MEGALOCKS says:
The Beavers look to be a much improved squad but it’s hard to see it showing up in their final win-loss record. Not going to participate in this market, but if we did, might take small taste of the ‘over’.
MEGAmazing Tidbits
The Civil War game with their in-state pals from Oregon is the 5th most continuously played rivalry game in the FBS as they have played every year since 1945. Oregon leads the series 65-47-10.
The Beavers have just one PAC-12 Championship to their credit. That came in 2000 when Dennis Erickson led Oregon St to a record of 11-1. It was culminated by an enjoyable 41-9 beating of Notre Dame.
MEGALOCKS ATS Outlook: Neutral
We might be dating ourselves, but we still remember when Oregon St was a tough out and ESPECIALLY difficult to beat in Corvallis. This feels like year two of a big-time rebuilding project but our PAC-12 INSIDERS will be shocked if they don’t pull at least one upset along the way. The offense looks pretty good and the defense should be able to do enough to keep them in a small handful of games.
When it comes to beating the number, keep in mind that the Beavers are just 23-39 ATS (37.1%) over the past 10 years at home. They just might show enough improvement to be decent bets on the road when catching lots of points. Go Beavers!
Want more Oregon St Football ?
WEBSITE
http://www.osubeavers.com/index.aspx?path=football
FORUM
http://bennyshouse.freeforums.net/board/3/men-iron
https://oregonstate.forums.rivals.com/forums/beaver-central.8/
NEWS
http://www.oregonlive.com/beaversfootball/
http://www.espn.com/college-football/team/_/id/204/oregon-state-beavers
http://bleacherreport.com/oregon-state-football
http://www.buildingthedam.com/football
TWITTER
Hashtag – #GoBeavs
Accounts to follow