Friday, September 26, 2008

Well Worth Anybody's 75 Dollars: Beavers 27 USC 21

(Unless you're a fan of the Trojans, I suppose!). Can't say that I watched the first half of last night's contest at Reser, but that's because I was splitting my time watching three baseball games instead: the Twins comeback against the White Sox, the Pirates/Brewers tilt, which featured a walk off grand slam by the Brewers Ryan Braun, and the Mets comeback against the Cubs 7-6. All of those games ended within 15 minutes of each other, though of course I spent more time on the Mets game. For the record, the winning single hit by Carlos Beltran happened just a minute after the third Beaver touchdown in the first half, because by that time my Beaver brother, who lives in Southern California, had begun texting me about the incredible happenings in Corvallis.


Whilst I have no particular love for the Beavers or many of their fans, the sight of Trojan head coach Pete Carroll befuddled on the sidelines helpless to stop the other side is one that had me laughing out loud. From what I watched in the second half, when the Trojans earnestly began to rally from the 21-0 halftime deficit, they had a very difficult time trying to get a hold of of freshman running back Jacquizz Rodgers, who had no problems getting a sizable number of yards on first down running straight up the field for continual short yardage situations. In addition, the Beaver defense stymied the Trojans for a good portion of the game by making things uncomfortable for Trojan quarterback Mark Sanchez, who statistically had a good game but was undone by way too many ineffectual 3 and out drives that failed to balance the time consuming drives that the Beavers used to establish their lead.



Way to go Beavers for a great exhibition of team football, it's nice to see the underdog pull out a decisive win against the favoured opponent, and I certainly don't begrudge the fans rushing the field at the end, it was a big, big win that was well deserved. What this means in the context of this season is anybody's guess, who knows how this team will respond next week away from Reser against a tough Utah team is something that we'll all know more about by next Sunday. As for what happened Thursday, it was an enjoyable 'perfect storm' of an underdog team at home thinking that it could beat the top dog strongly encouraged by its rabid fans.



ESPN RECAP

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