At 1-2, Beavers Need to Get Busy in a Hurry

The offensive line is a sieve, the running game’s shot and what started off as a season with high hopes has dissolved into an anticipated countdown toward hoops. The coach is at a loss to explain.

“I’m kind of wondering myself,” he said this week.

USC and Pete Carroll?

Nope.

Oregon State and Dennis Erickson.

Less than a year after a 11-1 season that culminated with a stunning 41-9 victory against Notre Dame and a stunning No. 4 finish in the polls, Oregon State is 1-2 and scrambling for its Pacific 10 equilibrium entering Saturday’s game against 4-0 Washington State at Pullman. Oregon State was the bookend to this year’s popular preseason college football package--hey, what’s up with this amazing renaissance of the Oregons?

Sports Illustrated got hooked like a Pacific salmon, touting Oregon State as its preseason No. 1, while some of us had the good judgment to see Oregon State as no better than No. 2. Oregon has shakily held up its end with its 4-0 start and No. 7 ranking, but last week’s 38-7 loss to UCLA drop-kicked Oregon State out of the top 25.

Explanation, please?

Hang with us. Oregon State always was the weak pillar in this year’s package deal--sportswriter to editor in August: “It’s two stories for one air fare!”--but there also was the notion that the miracle Erickson pulled off last year could be duplicated. Unlike last year, though, this Beaver squad has not been afforded the chance to grow up.

How soon we forget Oregon State nearly lost its 2000 home opener at home to Eastern Washington, a Division I-AA school, and struggled the following week to beat New Mexico, 28-20, before kick-starting its run in Game 3 with a 35-3 victory over San Diego State. This year’s Oregon State squad, which needed time to rework its offensive line, break in a new receiving corps and find two new defensive ends, got ambushed twice by two pretty good teams.

Fresno State, already up to game speed after an opening win over Colorado, knocked Oregon State, playing its first game, on its Beaver tail. UCLA also was in high gear coming off a tough win over Ohio State while Oregon State had been off three weeks.

Erickson was hoping to buy some time for his inexperienced players, but he didn’t get it.

“We lost some good players,” Erickson said this week. “Are we less talented? We are until some of these guys step up and start playing, which has got to start happening here pretty quick.”

Yes, Oregon State had a veteran backfield in quarterback Jonathan Smith and tailback Ken Simonton, but, in reality, both are small-in-stature types who could not be expected to carry a team without support.

There is no discounting the loss of receivers Chad Johnson, Robert Prescott and T.J. Houshmandzadeh, but the bigger disappointment has been the offensive line. The lack of punch up front has caused USC-like problems: no time for the quarterback to throw, few creases for the tailback to shimmy through.

Simonton, touted as a Heisman candidate, has only 237 yards in three games, three fewer than he totaled against USC last year. The Beavers rank ninth in the Pac-10 in scoring offense at 19.3 points a game, ahead of only USC (16.2). Oregon State is ninth in passing offense and eighth in rushing offense.

The season isn’t a wash yet. Oregon State shook off last year’s slow start to finish as one of the nation’s elite teams.

“A lot of it is confidence, among yourselves as players,” Erickson said. “To get that you’ve got to start having success. We’ve got to start having success.”

Pac Bits

The bowl championship series computers are supposed to be objective. Numbers don’t lie, right? But we couldn’t help note the following: The Seattle Times computer, one of eight used in the BCS formula, has Washington rated No.1 this week and Miami No.19.

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Oregon State hasn’t closed the Simonton-for-Heisman campaign, but the school has chosen not to renew the contract of the outside public relations personnel doing promotional work for Simonton.

Oregon State at Washington State this week is the least-anticipated game of the season for Erickson and Cougar Coach Mike Price, who grew up together in Everett, Wash.

“We’ve been close friends since we’ve been 14 years old, so this is hard on both of us,” Erickson said.

Price said he’d prefer not to coach against Erickson.

“I used to say, ‘Gawd, I’d love to,’ but I was lying,” Price said.

The good news: Washington State and Oregon State miss each other on the schedule next year.

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Arizona Coach John Mackovic, the former ESPN analyst, thinks it’s going to be very tough for a school to get through the Pac-10 schedule unbeaten. “But if somebody does,” Mackovic said, “I think they’ll deserve to be in the Rose Bowl.” Arizona can knock out one of the favorites Saturday if it defeats Oregon in Tucson. Oregon has had to work well into the fourth quarter for its four wins, but Mackovic said that’s not necessarily a negative.

“It’s a misconception to say they’re squeaking by,” Mackovic said. “It’s more a reality that they play and do what they have to do to win.”

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It’s not only that Oregon is on more sound financial, um, footing, now that Nike co-founder Phil Knight has ended his spat with the university. Duck Coach Mike Bellotti says Knight is anything but a silent investor.

“He’s the kind of guy who knows every player on the team, knows them on a first-name basis, where they came from,” Bellotti said. “He’s as knowledgeable as any booster in the world.”