Check out what Smith had to say after the Beavers beat UCLA 36-24 in Corvallis.
Oregon State has been difficult to beat at home in recent seasons, and that trend continued Saturday night as the 15th-ranked Beavers defeated the No. 18 UCLA Bruins 36-24 at Reser Stadium.
The Beavers (6-1, 3-1 Pac-12) improved to 15-1 at home across the past three seasons, even if they might not have been sharp in all three phases for the whole game.
After the OSU victory, coach Jonathan Smith talked to reporters about his team’s performance. Here’s a transcript, which has been edited slightly for brevity and clarity.
Smith: Yeah, obviously pleased. Good win. Awesome, awesome crowd, made a difference without a doubt. The place was electric. Defensively, getting some turnovers early was huge for us and then offensively, I thought we were pretty effective honestly, in the first half. A couple red zone trips we kicked field goals, made me a little nervous early on, but able to find a way that in the second half. That’s good football team. That’s a good defense, had some athletes running around, so I was really pleased offensively. Especially DJ (Uiagalelei), accurate, recognizing some coverage, making some plays there. Knew it was going to be a four-quarter fight and really happy to be on the right side of it.
Q: Before (Ryan) Cooper’s pick six, how did you feel like the energy was and then right after it, how did you feel like that impacted it?
Smith: That was big, there’s no question. Again, this thing was going to be back and forth. But we had a little bit of a lead and then he takes it back to the house. That was a huge for momentum piece going into halftime. Then we start with ball, we don’t get anything done third quarter. We got a stop on defense and then we were able to separate again, so. Big-time play, though, by Coop.
Q: What sort of impact did you feel having Ryan and Jaden (Robinson) back in the lineup?
Smith: Yeah, it helped. It helped. We’ve got confidence in those guys. I think Jaden made some big-time pass breakups on deep balls tonight that, that’s a 40-, 50-yard gain if he catches it. Jaden breaks it up. So it helps with our confidence having those two veterans back there.
Q: Over the last couple of games, Jack Velling seems to have been your guys’ kind of secret weapon. How important has his impact on the field been for you guys?
Smith: Yeah, huge plays tonight, a lot of it was coverage recognition by the quarterback. I think Aidan (Chiles) does a great job. It’s third down, we’re trying to throw the ball into the end zone, they were soft in coverage. Jack’s the one in the flat. Aidan recognizes it, getting the touchdown. Later, DJ, we’ve got some other stuff on the outside, goes to cover two. They got open middle coverage and he creases that thing. That was a good ball, Jack comes down with it. Big play by Jack after we’re faking more or less Wildcat run with DJ underneath, defender gets under, tips it, Silas (Bolden) catches the ball. And then later, when we’re trying to throw a wheel round to Jack, Jack goes up and high points the ball, so a bunch of plays by Velling.
Q: Did that play scare you at all?
Smith: Yeah, a little bit. Velling’s open going down the sideline, we’re just a little late getting to him because of the protection. The guys got to make some plays and Velling definitely did.
Q: You guys are now 6 for 6 on fourth-down conversions in your last two games. Do you have some sort of sixth sense or can you just see into the future? Or is it just a feeling thing when you get into those moments that you you feel like you can make those conversions?
Smith: Yeah, I’m thinking about the one tonight. That field position, that long field goal attempt, you’re going to punt and how much are you really going to gain, so being aggressive there. That was a good throw to the sideline to Anthony Gould by DJ.
Q: How important did you feel like it was for DJ to pair up back-to-back, pretty good performances? And what are you seeing from him these last couple games that’s kind of elevated his play?
Smith: I think he’s been more and more accurate and I think that’s come from his comfort level. Again, you’re talking about a first year in a system where there’s going to be some learning curve early on. I think back to back he’s played really, really well. He’s throwing it accurate, he’s feeling confident with the guys to make some plays for him. And so, more or less halfway point, hopefully he can continue this.
Q: You alluded to the crowd tonight. It seemed like the crowd had more of an impact tonight than maybe it’s had in quite a while. Maybe on the other team, your team, I don’t know. Did you feel that way?
Smith: It energizes our guys on defense, but also making it hard on the opponent, hard on the officiating crew at the same time.
Q: What are the things you may have seen on film or emphasized in practice that allowed you to come out of this game with three interceptions?
Smith: Yeah, I don’t know if it was all film study. If you can affect the quarterback and make him move his feet, get it extended. We’ve got some guys in the secondary that can catch the ball. Akili (Arnold) comes up big. We’re hitting the quarterback for Chats (Andrew Chatfield) and on his pick, and then Coop does a good job recognizing kind of the route, working the sideline and pseudo-two minute. So that’s probably a little bit of Coop’s film study. So it’s all combined. You got to affect the quarterback and then, when they throw it to you, you got to be able to catch it.
Q: You lost a couple of receivers after last year and obviously you had some returners in that room. But how big and important has Silas’ play been, knowing you’re incorporating DJ into this offense?
Smith: Yeah, Silas has been huge. Got the big post ball down off of play-action pass. Silas and Anthony, we felt both of those two, could and we would need to have kind of big seasons. And, made big plays in both of them. Gould last week, third down, Gould’s got some huge catches again tonight. And Silas has been lights out really for the whole year.
Q: You continue to give Aidan that drive in the first half. A couple of weeks in a row he’s had a really short field to work with, but not a lot of long drives. But what are you seeing in these games with Aidan?
Smith: Yeah, again, we just feel like the more opportunities you get, the better he gets. We’re really confident in him. We’re not changing the offense when he goes into the game. He’s confident when he goes out there. I think it’s been a nice mixture for DJ and Aidan continuing to work throughout the week because they both feel like they’re preparing to get plays. Look, the guy’s our backup quarterback currently. We want to keep getting him in the game so if he’s called upon to win us the game he’s ready to do it.
Q: You’ve mentioned in the past that there’s no real perfect time to have a bye week. How do you feel about this one? You’ve won two in a row, but I imagine there’s some guys banged up. How do you feel about this one?
Q: What does it say for the offense’s confidence to be able to have 36 points against a really good defense?
Smith: Yeah, this is a good defense. They’re going to hold a lot of people to some low numbers. Again, we got to make sure the run game-pass game, we got to keep that going. Definitely helps when the defense scores, right, to get that point total up. And each week’s going to be new, but we felt good offensively what we were able to get done.
Q: A couple of weeks now where the run defense hasn’t quite been as sharp as we had seen in the first part of the season. Is that kind of an area of concern or is that maybe just UCLA didn’t have a great time throwing the ball tonight and decided to run more?
Smith: No, it’s going to be an area of focus, there’s no question. We get the bye week to kind of study ourselves. We got to shore some things up. I think this rushing total is way higher than we wanted, back-to-back weeks. So that’s something we’ve got to definitely put an emphasis on.
Q: It seemed like we started the season with Damien Martinez being the primary ballcarrier, but that looks to have kind of become a more balanced, running back by committee with Deshaun Fenwick putting up great numbers as well and both of them kind of contributing equally. How do you feel about their production as a group moving forward?
Smith: Feel good. We want to have multiple backs. I think we got 1A and 1B. Fenwick’s had some really good carries and makes it physical. We’ve got all the confidence in the world with him. So yeah, we like sharing the load in the run game, keeping those guys fresh.
Q: When I was leaving out of the stadium, I heard a couple fans yelling at the UCLA team called them traitors and there were other things mentioned to them. Does it mean anything to you guys to sort of rack up these wins and show that you guys belong amongst those top programs in the country?
Smith: Well, I do think we belong, competing at the highest level and we continue to prove it. At the same time it’s not individual to UCLA, especially their players, they had nothing to do with it on that end. They got some really good players. They’re going to continue to have a big-time year.
