Beavers Meeting Trojans With an Improved Look

USC Coach Larry Smith has described his unbeaten, third-ranked team as average, so, by that reckoning, the Trojans will have a compatible opponent today at Parker Stadium.

Oregon State is an average football team and that assessment is not slighting the Beavers. On the contrary, Oregon State, woefully weak for so many years, has improved to the point that it is gaining a measure of respect from opponents.

Smith says it’s the best Oregon State team he has seen in his 8 years in the conference.

He’s probably accurate, but the Beavers had nowhere else to go but up. Consider: Oregon State has a 3-3-1 record, 1-2-1 in the Pacific 10 Conference. In 9 previous years, the Beavers had won an average of only 1.7 games a season.

They haven’t had a winning season since 1970, when they were 6-5, and they may not make it this year, but they’re definitely on the upswing.

In a word, the Beavers are competitive. After falling behind UCLA, 21-0, they didn’t fold as they have in the past, coming back to trail 21-14 and 31-21 before eventually losing, 38-21.

Oregon State outplayed Arizona and Stanford from a statistical standpoint, only to get a loss, 23-14, and a tie, 20-20, respectively.

What has accounted for the renaissance of the Beavers?

Oregon State Coach Dave Kragthorpe, in his fourth year at Corvallis, says that he has a group of seniors who wanted to improve.

“It started last spring when the group decided to change some things and set some goals,” he said. “We wanted to get a better running game, shore up the defense and have a more aggressive attitude.”

That has been accomplished along with another ingredient, the maturation of senior quarterback Erik Wilhelm.

Kragthorpe said that Oregon State didn’t have a backup quarterback of any substance last year and that Wilhelm was not improving with no one to push him.

So Kragthorpe brought in two junior college transfers, Nick Schichtle and Matt Booher, to pressure Wilhelm. He responded.

The left-handed quarterback has kept them on the bench. He has completed 64.8% of his passes for 1,878 yards and 13 touchdowns. Moreover, among the 273 passes he has thrown, he has only 3 interceptions. He needs to average 243.5 yards passing in the final 4 games to surpass Stanford’s John Elway as the conference’s all-time passing leader.

“He just has a better perception of the field,” Kragthorpe said. “In the past he has lost his poise a little bit and had a tendency to shoot himself in the foot. But he has made marked improvement and is having a great year.”

In OSU’s self-styled “Air Express,” Wilhelm’s main target is flanker Robb Thomas, who has a conference-leading 44 catches for 566 yards.

Kragthorpe said there was a tendency not to emphasize the running game in practice in other years. Now the Beavers are more balanced. As an example, Oregon State rushed for 220 yards and passed for 245 yards in the tie with Stanford.

Tailback Brian Taylor, the son of Roosevelt Taylor, former National Football League defensive back, is averaging 4.8 yards a carry and 220-pound fullback Pat Chaffey has a 4.1 average. Both backs are used in the passing scheme. Chaffey teamed with Wilhelm on a 69-yard touchdown against UCLA.

The Beavers are still having problems slowing other teams, though, and are yielding an average of 372.7 yards a game, second-worst in the conference. Even that figure, though, is an improvement over the 462.1 yards Oregon State allowed in 1987.

As for USC, Smith is concerned that his team may not have the proper respect for Oregon State, considering that the Trojans haven’t lost to the Beavers since 1967 and have averaged 45 points against them in the last 7 meetings.

Smith also calls this a pivotal game in the sense that USC’s pass defense broke down in the second half of a 28-27 victory over Washington Oct. 15. He is also challenging the Trojans by calling them average, even though their 6-0 record, 4-0 in the Pac-10, is the school’s best start since the 1975 season.

He is also mindful that in USC’s last trip to the state of Oregon, in 1987, the Trojans were upset by the Ducks, 34-27, and he’s wary of another ambush.

It’s unlikely, but stranger things have happened in the Northwest.

Trojan Notes

USC is a 16-point favorite today. . . . It’s homecoming at Oregon State and a crowd of 28,000 is expected. . . . The Beavers have gained more yards rushing this year, 994, than they have in any of the 3 previous seasons. . . . Every Pac-10 team has a .500 or better record this season.

Oregon State is second in the conference in turnover margin with a +10 compared to -21 in 1987. USC is a +9 in that category. . . . The Beavers have recorded 12 sacks in 7 games with defensive end Pellom McDaniels credited with 3. They had 11 sacks in 1987. They sacked UCLA’s Troy Aikman 4 times Oct. 8 at the Rose Bowl.

Although the Beavers have an improved running game, they rushed for only 31 yards against the Bruins. The Trojans lead the Pac-10 in rushing defense, allowing an average of only 91.5 yards a game. . . . Scott Lockwood will be USC’s starting tailback for the second straight game. He’ll be backed up by Ricky Ervins and Calvin Holmes. Lockwood gained a career-high 133 yards in a 28-27 victory over Washington Oct. 15.

In last year’s game against Oregon State, USC quarterback Rodney Peete completed 15 of 18 passes for 249 yards and 2 touchdowns. He also scored on runs of 6 and 11 yards as the Trojans won at the Coliseum, 48-14. . . . USC has the nation’s toughest schedule, according to the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. The Trojans have already beaten three top 20 teams--Oklahoma, Oregon and Washington--with No. 1- and 2-ranked UCLA and Notre Dame still ahead on the schedule. . . . USC leads the series with Oregon State, 43-7-4.