Ten worst power conference defenses, per S&P+ (2005-18)
- 2018 Oregon State (43.4)
- 2015 Kansas (40.6)
- 2015 Texas Tech (40.3)
- 2017 Oregon State (39.9)
- 2014 Colorado (38.9)
- 2007 Minnesota (38.8)
- 2011 Kansas (38.7)
- 2018 Illinois (38.6)
- 2011 Indiana (38.5)
- 2009 Washington State (38.5)
Oregon State’s 2018 D wasn’t only the worst of this group; it was the worst by a lot.
The offense has promise, returning its starting quarterback (Jake Luton), a 1,300-yard rusher (Jermar Jefferson), and all but one member of its receiving corps. And it doesn’t matter unless the defense can go from historically awful to merely bad.
The combination of experienced returnees, veterans who were injured in 2018, and transfers should allow for improvement, and not only because things almost literally can’t get worse. But we’ll see how much improvement is possible in a single offseason when you’re this truly putrid.
Offense
The OSU offense most certainly wasn’t the problem in 2018. But that doesn’t mean it was good. The Beavers fell from 59th to 73rd in Off. S&P+, though their adjusted scoring averages stayed about the same.
For the second straight year, quarterback Jake Luton missed quite a bit of time with injury. Granted, missing four games with an ankle injury is far less severe than missing most of the year with a spinal injury, as he did in 2017. Still, after almost immediately getting hurt and ceding the floor to Conor Blount, he returned in week 3, played well against Nevada, then missed another month. Blount took the job but ended up dealing with both shoulder and concussion injuries. Jack Colletto got a two-game audition and bombed, and Luton ended up with his job back.
In a roundabout way, that all this happened and OSU’s offense held steady from 2018 is a good sign? If nothing else, OSU keeping the same QB upright for most of the season would probably result in improvement.
Luton and Costello both return, and Blount transferred, but there’s a new candidate for the starting job: Nebraska transfer and former blue-chipper Tristan Gebbia. It appears neither Luton nor Gebbia dramatically stood out in the spring.
Coordinator Brian Lindgren, who came to Corvallis from Colorado, subsisted mainly on short passes and big runs. Luton and Blount both completed about 62 percent of their passes, and OSU ranked 44th in passing marginal efficiency, 35th on standard downs. Things went awry immediately once the Beavers were behind schedule, but they were occasionally dangerous, especially when Luton was healthy.
One person in particular benefited when Luton was on the field: Isaiah Hodgins. The junior from Oakley, Cal., caught 47 passes for 690 yards and five scores with Luton; the other six games, he caught 12 for 186 and no scores. Senior Trevon Bradford also produced better stats with Luton.
One person who didn’t: Jermar Jefferson. Luton is the statue of all statues, and Blount and Costello threatened defenses a bit with their legs. A little distraction appeared to go a long way — Jefferson, a mid-three-star freshman at the time, rushed for 793 yards (7.4 per carry) and 10 touchdowns in games without Luton. In games with the 6’6 senior: 587 yards (4.4 per carry) and two scores.
The left side of the line — guard Gus Lavaka and Blake Brandel — return, having combined for 67 career starts. Unfortunately the other four players with starting experience are gone. The combination of Luton and a semi-new line could make Jefferson’s life pretty hard.
Gebbia isn’t the only transfer Smith is hoping will make a difference: Arizona center Nathan Eldridge flips from the South division to the North, and sophomore Tyjon Lindsey makes it two Nebraska transfers on the offense.
Tim Tibesar has established a perfectly decent coaching career. A former defensive coordinator for North Dakota (2004-05), Kansas State (2007-08), the Montreal Alouettes (2011), and Purdue (2012), he had spent three seasons as Wisconsin’s OLBs coach before moving west to run Smith’s defense in 2018. Wisconsin’s OLBs were, it must be said, quite good.
Whatever his strengths, he had no idea what to do with the personnel he inherited in Corvallis. And he didn’t inherit much. OSU’s 2017 defense had been horrible, most of the line was gone, a couple of potential starting DBs were hurt, and the linebackers with experience didn’t appear to translate into the scheme Tibesar wanted to run.
The Oregon State defense was a master work in awfulness. They were balanced in all the wrong ways — in terms of marginal efficiency, they were 130th rushing, 126th passing, 128th on standard downs, and 129th on passing downs. They sort of prevented big pass plays, ranking 74th in passing marginal explosiveness, but they made up for that by ranking 123rd in rushing marginal explosiveness. They let opponents avoid third-and-longs, and they couldn’t really stop third-and-longs when they were created. They had exactly one semi-disruptive player, linebacker Hamilcar Rashed Jr. (11.5 tackles for loss), which is to say that they were in no way disruptive (125th in havoc rate).
Worse, there was no hint of in-season improvement. They began the year giving up 77 points to Ohio State and finished giving up 55 to Oregon. They held only Southern Utah under 34 points.
The good news, as it were, is that just about everybody is back. That includes two of the three linemen Tibesar trusted to take most of the snaps (including 385-pound man-mountain Elu Aydon), seven of eight primary linebackers (including Rashed), and eight of nine DBs, plus the two injured safeties (sophomore David Morris and senior Omar Hicks-Onu).
Smith also signed three JUCO linemen and a pair of four-star linebacker transfers in Oklahoma’s Addison Gumbs and Nebraska’s Avery Roberts. (Apparently Nebraska’s trade with OSU was Mike Riley for three players to be named later.)
If nothing else, the competition in practice will be better this year.
You’ve still gotta have some play-makers, though, and it’s really hard to find some.
If at least one of the JUCO linemen (tackle Jordan Whittley was the highest-rated) and one of the linebacker transfers butts their way into the starting lineup, and if Morris can join Jalen Moore in forming a much better last line of defense, then this defense will have almost no choice but to improve.
Special Teams
OSU has a decent pair of legs. Jordan Choukair’s is strong, which resulted in solid kickoffs and a few long field goals (he also missed some short kicks, but we’re trying to be positive here). Daniel Rodriguez’s is accurate, which mean that while he averaged only 41.9 yards per punt (not awful, not great), he didn’t allow many returns. He also had 11 punts downed inside the 20 with zero touchbacks.
I’ve said enough bad things in this preview, so I’ll refrain from mentioning that the return game was horrid last year.
2019 outlook
2019 Schedule & Projection Factors
Date | Opponent | Proj. S&P+ Rk | Proj. Margin | Win Probability |
30-Aug | Oklahoma State | 22 | -19.7 | 13% |
7-Sep | at Hawaii | 94 | -6.4 | 36% |
14-Sep | Cal Poly | NR | 14.7 | 80% |
28-Sep | Stanford | 32 | -17.0 | 16% |
5-Oct | at UCLA | 63 | -15.0 | 19% |
12-Oct | Utah | 17 | -22.3 | 10% |
19-Oct | at California | 60 | -15.3 | 19% |
2-Nov | at Arizona | 52 | -17.4 | 16% |
8-Nov | Washington | 15 | -24.6 | 8% |
16-Nov | Arizona State | 49 | -12.8 | 23% |
23-Nov | at Washington State | 36 | -20.8 | 11% |
30-Nov | at Oregon | 20 | -25.7 | 7% |
Projected S&P+ Rk | 105 |
Proj. Off. / Def. Rk | 68 / 116 |
Projected wins | 2.6 |
Five-Year S&P+ Rk | -8.0 (97) |
2- and 5-Year Recruiting Rk | 66 |
2018 TO Margin / Adj. TO Margin* | -10 / -7.6 |
2018 TO Luck/Game | -1.0 |
Returning Production (Off. / Def.) | 74% (62%, 86%) |
2018 Second-order wins (difference) | 1.8 (0.2) |
When Chris Petersen took the Washington job, it took him a couple of years to get the pieces arranged. UW was basically the same team it had been before he got there, until a third-year breakthrough.
To say the least, OSU was about the same as it had been in Andersen’s last year, too. And while the combination of a decent offense and probably-not-worse defense should result in overall improvement, the schedule only features two opponents projected worse than 63rd in S&P+. OSU was 111th last year. That is quite the gap.
OSU is a projected 15-point favorite against Cal Poly and a six-point underdog at Hawaii. The Beavers are at least a 13-point underdog in the other 10 games. Improvement to 3-9 will require at least one significant upset.
Smith’s second year will be a success if he finds long-term answers on the two-deep and example-setters in the weight room. It’s doubtful that it will be all that successful on the scoreboard.