Through seven weeks of play, a firm top two has emerged in the reborn Pac-12: Boise State and Oregon State.
The 21st-ranked Broncos (5-1, 2-0) were idle during Week 7 while the Beavers (5-2, 3-0) took over the Pac-12 lead with a 48-30 home victory over Washington State (1-6, 0-3) on Saturday.
Oregon State jumped out to a 27-3 first-half lead and piled up 555 yards of total offense, but the Cougars got a strong effort from new starting quarterback Owen Eshelman to stay within striking distance. In his first career start, Eshelman completed 32 of 49 passes for 289 yards with two touchdowns and one interception while running for 136 yards and another score on 15 carries.
“I think tonight, we experienced some real friction,” head coach JaMarcus Shephard said of the Beavers’ fifth straight win. “And some of it was caused by them, and some of the friction was caused by ourselves. I’ll tell you what, we needed that, though. We needed that. Going into the bye, this is a really good opportunity for our team to do some self-assessment.”
The Beavers, who had won their previous four games by an average of 35.8 points, got a monster effort from running back AJ Newberry. The senior had 11 carries for 105 yards while catching five passes for 120 yards, including a highlight reel 88-yard touchdown reception.
True freshman superstar Jesse Legree had a 90-yard TD of his own and finished with eight receptions for 108 yards and two scores.
Oregon State will be off next week ahead of a road trip to Fresno State, which will be doing a different type of self-assessment during its bye week.
The Bulldogs (4-3, 1-2) followed up a hard-fought 38-31 home loss to Boise State with a disastrous 26-23 defeat at San Diego State (3-4, 2-1) on Saturday night. The Aztecs were coming off a 52-point blowout loss at Oregon State.
Cooper DiLeva connected on a 53-yard field goal with 57 seconds remaining and the beleaguered San Diego State defense slammed the door with a four-and-out.
“We’ve got to be better at the simple things,” Fresno State head coach Matt Entz said after the game. “Tackling alignment, communications, technique—all those things—we’re not where we should be. I mean, there’s some really good things that happened tonight at different times, but just not enough, not consistent enough.”
On Thursday night, Texas State (3-3, 1-1) picked up its first Pac-12 victory in program history with a 66-27 home beatdown of Colorado State (2-4, 0-2).
The Bobcats ran for a staggering 503 yards on 55 carries (9.1 yards per attempt) and gained 716 total yards. Torrance Burgess Jr. led the way with 24 carries for 224 yards and four touchdowns while also hauling in three passes for 52 yards.
The Rams rank dead last nationally in total defense (530.3 yards allowed per game) and scoring defense (43.2 points allowed per game).
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