Arizona Football: Everything You Need to Know About Oregon State

This weekend HAS to be redemption weekend for the Arizona football team as they take on the Oregon State University Beavers in Tucson on Parent Weekend.

It’s University of Arizona’s Annual Parent Weekend, so I would assume a lot of the parents of Arizona football players along with the rest of the student body will be on campus this coming weekend. Also, game time is set for 1:00 p.m. in the desert, this is the earliest the team has played since a 12:30 p.m. start against Washington in 2014 per Zack Rosenblatt.

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It will be nice for the freshman players, some of whom have not seen their parents since they arrived early in the summer to attend camp, to have their parents in the stands. I’m sure most of them are used to having their parents at all their games when they played in high school.

It has not been a great week for the Wildcats; the coaches and team seem deflated and frustrated for good reason. Wildcats fans have been critical of the defense and Coach Casteel, critical of the recruiting and the depth chart. Most fans, though, are very supportive of their football team and focussed on bringing the Haka back.

What most fans keep forgetting is that the Wildcats defense is constantly changing, and linebackers have dropped like flies. What’s even more important is that their leaders are on the sidelines. Stanford is an excellent, experienced, big team full of players who chose Stanford for the education.

Oregon State is coming off of a bye week. Yes, they get a bye week, unlike Arizona, who could have benefited from one if they were given one. The Beavers are rested, and their Quarterback Seth Collins is feeling pretty confident. At the same time, the Wildcats are wounded and regrouping and may not have their starting quarterback as Anu is day-to-day and will not play if he does not practice this week.

Records: Beavers (2-2, 0-1) coming off a bye week vs. Arizona (3-2, 0-2)

Last game: Oregon State lost to Stanford 42-24 two weeks ago, Arizona lost to Stanford 55-17 last week.

Game Time: 1:00 pm in Tucson, TV – FOX Sports 1, Radio – TuneIn, Arizona IMG Sports Network

Date: Saturday, Oct. 10

Location: Tucson, Ariz

Hashtag: #OSUvsAZ

Pre-Game Notes:

Arizona Wildcats

Gina Mizell Oregon Live reports the following stats:

• Beavers rank last in Pac-12 in scoring offense, first in passing defense
• The Beavers rank last in scoring offense (23 points per game), total offense (338.2 yards per game), passing offense (149.8 yards per game) and pass efficiency (113.4).
• OSU also leads the league in three key on the other side of the ball: Passing defense (153 yards allowed per game), third-down defense (27.5 opponent conversion percentage) and opponent first downs (17 per game).
• Team Passing defense: First (153 yards allowed per game, 12th nationally)
• Team Third-down defense: First (27.5 percent, 16th nationally)
• Team Opponent first downs: First (17 per game, tied 11th nationally)
• Team Total Defense: Third (331 yards allowed per game)
• Team Sacks Against: Third (five)
• Red zone efficiency: Tied fourth (83.3 percent)

In Coach Rich Rodriguez’s Press Conference on Monday, he explained the opposing Beavers quarterback Seth Collins strengths, “He might be the fastest quarterback we play all year, I have been really impressed with him.” He added, “They do some similar stuff that we do and some other things as well.”

Gary Horowitz, of the Statesman Journal, reported that Beavers quarterback Collins is excited to play Arizona, which seems like an understatement considering all the giggling he was doing during the interview:

"“Just breaking down the film I’m real excited to get after these guys,” said Collins, a true freshman who has started all four games. “We have a great opportunity.”“Every week is different, every week is different, I’m not going to say what we are going to do, I’m just going to go out there and play.”"

Dear Arizona Defense, please sack this quarterback, he seems hugely overconfident. After all they got three days off last weekend, no practices Thursday, Friday or Saturday.

Horowitz also reported OSU wide receiver Jordan Villamin ‘is aware that Arizona struggled in its past two games, especially on defense.’

"“We saw a lot of holes in their defense that we’re gonna try to exploit and see if we can duplicate the same results.”"

Funny, Beavers seem to be forgetting they have holes in their defense, didn’t they lose big to Stanford as well? Seems pretty even at this point, we are playing all of our strings, and they are playing their first strings who performed the same against a Stanford powerhouse.

On the Pac-12 Coaches call this morning, OSU Coach Gary Anderson was asked what he accomplished in the bye week, “It was a positive week, I don’t know if we accomplished everything we wanted…we got accomplished what we wanted with schemes…I believe it was mission accomplished, and the bye week I believe came at a very good time for us as we continue forward.”

October 3, 2015; Stanford, CA, USA; Arizona Wildcats quarterback Jerrard Randall (8) passes the football against the Stanford Cardinal during the first quarter at Stanford Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

On his team’s preparations for Arizona, “There may be more running I think that Randall plays on the offense, Solomon has so much more experience. I don’t expect the offense to differ completely.”

Anderson continued, “It’s a high-fast-paced offense that has a lot of skilled players on the field. One of the designs is they want to run the ball first..if you don’t stop the run..you better put a priority on that. Number two, you’re going to have to tackle well in space.”

Zack Rosenblatt asked the Oregon State coach if playing Arizona is a scarier because Arizona is motivated coming off two blowout losses. “I’m sure those kids are going to be just fine, I’m sure the coaches are going to be just fine, they’ve had a setback,” he continued, “those kids are going to come out and expect to win and yeah they’ve had a couple of tough losses..they are always very, very difficult to beat especially when you’re coming in on their home turf.”

He ended the call with “Go Beaves.”  Hey, coach? What happened to the ‘R’?

Upshot: Beavers are over-confident, Arizona will be playing at home in the heat they are used to, and Oregon State is not, both seem to have issues with defense, so I predict an offensive showdown.

Prediction: Arizona 35 Oregon State 34

Wednesday’s post-practice report from the Arizona Daily Star:

Next: Arizona Football Haka-Gate: New Zealanders and Fans Speak out