BeaversEdge Staff Predictions: Colorado State vs Oregon State

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Every Friday of each game week, the BeaversEdge.com staff will give its predictions for Oregon State’s matchup!

With the Oregon State Beavers (3-1) set to host Colorado State (2-2) on Saturday afternoon, BeaversEdge Publisher Brenden Slaughter, recruiting analyst Dylan Callaghan-Croley, and writers T.J. Mathewson and Ryan Harlan give their two cents on the matchup and who’s going to come out on top!

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If you zoom out and look at this game on a macro level, it looks a whole lot like the game the Beavers played a couple of weeks ago against Purdue.

At home (of course), facing a struggling team whose offensive structure is built around throwing the ball, but has resorted to running the ball out of necessity, and has been throttled by the best teams on their schedule, but managed against the worst.

That’s a pretty basic version of how CSU’s 2024 season has gone so far, and the Beavers feel ripe to take advantage of it and advance to 4-1.

The Vegas line opened at OSU -14 but has been bet down to -11.5, but I don’t think it matters too much. The only boost on the CSU side is getting star WR Tory Horton back for this game, which could ignite the Rams’ passing attack.

Still, I think the Beavers have better players and are playing at home…

Let’s see if the Beavers give Darrius Clemons a more involved role with more time to ramp up, and if the Beavers can better defend the run against a struggling offense.

PREDICTION: Oregon State 28, Colorado State 14

TJ’s season record: 3-1

With both teams coming off their first bye weeks of the season, this figures to be a solid matchup in Corvallis.

Colorado State is better than Idaho State and SDSU, and likely better than Purdue this season, but the Beavers will be well-prepared for this matchup having played two of their toughest games in the previous three weeks.

While the bye will benefit both teams, I think it favors the Beavers more coming off games against Oregon and Purdue than Colorado and UTEP for the Rams.

Both squads are coming off wins, with the Beavers beating Purdue and CSU against UTEP, but UTEP is 0-4 on the year and the previous week they were blown out by Deion and the Buffs 28-9.

The biggest matchup I see in this contest is the CSU run defense against Oregon State’s top-10 rushing offense. The Beavers average just over 265 per game on the ground, while CSU allows just 136 this year (top 40).

Additionally, this could be a get-right game for the Beavers in terms of run defense as that’s an area they ear-marked for improvement after the first four games of the season.

I don’t expect the Rams to slow down the Beavers’ run game in a big way, but they could hinder them enough for the Beavers’ passing attack and Gevani McCoy to do more through the air.

With that, I would like to see the Oregon State offensive playbook expand a bit. Especially with wide receiver Darrius Clemons entering the mix, a bit more passing to complement a strong run game would do wonders for the Beavers this week and moving forward.

CSU QB Brayden-Fowler-Nicolosi and Tory Horton are a QB-WR combo to watch as those two can make big plays, but I expect the Beavers to potentially even double-up Horton and force some of the lesser-known receivers to win one-on-one battles.

The Rams present a challenge similar to Purdue, and considering how the Beavers handled that game, look for Oregon State to add another win to the ledger on Saturday evening as they take care of business against a CSU team that is very beatable at Reser Stadium…

PREDICTION – Oregon State 31, Colorado State 14

Brenden’s season record: 4-0