5 Takeaways From Oregon State’s Loss To Air Force

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With the Oregon State football team (4-6) falling to Air Force (3-7) 28-0 on Saturday afternoon, BeaversEdge gives five takeaways from the loss…

The quarterback carousel continues to spin and spin throughout the season, this time against Air Force.

Ben Gulbranson was missing from today’s contest against the Falcons due to an unspecified injury, so there was a heavy dosage of Gevani McCoy and Gabarri Johnson at quarterback for the Beavers.

McCoy and Johnson were unspectacular in the game, running Ryan Gunderson’s offense, and both combined for 106 passing yards. McCoy had two series in the first half and only mustered zero passing yards, while Johnson had 106 yards while only completing 47 percent of his passes against Air Force.

For those clamoring for Johnson to start, well, you got your wish this week, but there was also a reason he didn’t get a serious look after McCoy was benched in favor of Ben Gulbranson. Gulbranson wouldn’t have made this performance better, but Johnson looked like a freshman and still needs time to develop as a quarterback, as he struggled significantly against the Falcons.

However, you might have been holding on to what you saw in spring ball with him and the talent that he flashed, in addition to having a lost season as to why you wanted to see him start. There was a reason why he was spectacular in spring ball, and that’s because he was scrimmaging against third-team guys on the team; he should look that way. That performance doesn’t translate over into the regular season.

This is also why you don’t put much stock in spring football practices; you aren’t in a game-like atmosphere. I also knew that a quarterback change wouldn’t benefit this team either because two quarterbacks struggled before Johnson saw his most significant action all season.

The quarterback change has not eliminated the inconsistencies we’ve seen all season at the position. Now, with three different quarterbacks, the most improvement we noticed was against San Jose State with Ben Gulbranson, which resulted in 13 points and two interceptions.

Oregon State doesn’t have a quarterback on this roster, and they’ll have to get a guy in the portal or let incoming freshman quarterback Tristan Ti’a be a serious candidate to take the reigns of the starting job next season.

McCoy isn’t the guy going forward, Johnson hasn’t shown enough to be the guy, and Gulbranson hasn’t demonstrated enough either to be the starter in the future. Regardless, Trent Bray has to hit the portal hard for a quarterback, among other positions, to be competitive next season, or else we may see even more of a regression than we already have.

Poor quarterback play is also a byproduct of this team’s lack of offensive identity. For someone who used to be a former quarterback in Gunderson, there needs to be a look in the mirror as to what this offense will look like because otherwise, these struggles will continue regardless of quarterback.

With the Beavers again having a change at quarterback ahead of the matchup against Air Force, you would have thought that the Beavers would heavily lean on the ground game and running back Anthony Hankerson, who has been one of the few bright spots on this offense this season.

If you had said before this game that Anthony Hankerson would have six carries for 19 yards in this matchup, I would have said something terrible had to have happened to the Beavers’ ground game for that to happen.

Yep, you read that right… Just six carries for the Beavers’ lead back, with backup Salahadin Allah garning just two, for a total of eight carries for Beavers’ RBs.

There were more rushes from the quarterbacks (13 for Johnson, three for McCoy) than all the backs in total, and while the QB run game can be effective, it’s indicative of just how much the ground game struggled or wasn’t committed to in this matchup. All told the Beavers finished with just 69 yards on the ground, their second-lowest total of the 2024 campaign.

If you had said there was a game this season in which the Beavers had eight running back carries, say a year ago, somebody would have said you were crazy.

It’s such a stark departure of identity from the Beaver teams we’ve seen over the past couple of seasons. While this game may be unique in terms of circumstances, this has been a trend in recent weeks, and really since Jam Griffin got hurt, the inability to have a consistent ground attack.

In this matchup specifically, I’m shocked that we didn’t see a more significant commitment to the run game, considering that on paper, the Beavers had an advantage on the offensive line compared to Air Force’s defensive line. Calhoun even mentioned as much coming into the week, so what happened?

From what I could tell, the OL was struggling to open up holes in the ground game, and Air Force routinely seemed to be in the right spots and didn’t miss many tackles. Hankerson can be a tough bring-down, and there was one time he broke through for a 12-yard gain, but six carries are not anywhere close to enough to get him in rhythm.

The Beavers are not designed to be a drop-back passing team, and when the bread and butter of your offense aren’t working, you will have ugly results like we saw today. The Beavers have to be able to run the ball to have success, and while it wasn’t the lowest rushing total of the season as a team (Cal has that nod), it was the worst game of the year for Hankerson, the workhorse of the offense.