Red Raiders make ‘Great Escape,’ but Beavers show what is possible

Jesse Legree races for paydirt on one of his two touchdown receptions in Oregon State’s 35-24 loss to Texas Tech Saturday at Reser Stadium. The true freshman hauled in eight passes for 240 yards, second-most receiving yards in school history (courtesy OSU sports communications)

CORVALLIS — The scoreboard read Texas Tech 35, Oregon State 24. From the Beavers’ perspective, that’s a shame. The final score was in no way indicative of the kind of game an announced crowd of 30,539 saw Saturday at Reser Stadium. (Sorry: Looked more like 25,000.)

For the second straight week, the Beavers faced a top-25 team, this time the 13th-ranked Red Raiders, armed with $45 million in NIL and revenue-sharing resources and the talent to match. For the second straight time, the Beavers came up short in the win column. But man, did they make those dudes from the Lone Star State sweat.

Oregon State won the total offense battle 472 yards to 351, led 24-21 in the fourth quarter and made the 25-point Vegas spread look like cheap peanut butter.

“We made that Tech team come in here and battle to the end,” proclaimed JaMarcus Shephard, Oregon State’s rookie head coach, who divided his attention between motivating his players, working the referees and pumping up the OSU partisans in the stands.

Quarterback Will Hammond connected on a 32-yard touchdown pass to Coy Eakin to give Texas Tech the lead for good at 28-24 with 6:31 remaining. Oregon State had three more possessions but failed to score, and the Red Raiders tacked on another TD with 1:03 left to provide the final margin of victory. If it were a movie, it would have been titled “the Great Escape.”

“That was a great football game,” Shephard said. “Our coaching staff did a great job getting our players ready for it. The players did the same thing. I expected this of our team, and I expected more. I know there are some who don’t, but I am excited about the direction we are going. We know what we are capable of. We know what is possible here. We showed a lot of that today.”

The Beavers’ show-stoppers were sophomore quarterback Braden Atkinson and true freshman receiver Jesse Legree, a 1-2 punch the likes of Corvallis hasn’t seen since Sean Mannion and Brandin Cooks left town.

Atkinson, who threw for 376 yards in a 33-20 loss at Houston last Saturday, completed 29 of 49 passes for 399 yards and two touchdowns, caught a four-yard pass off a trick play for a third score and scrambled for a game-tying two-point conversion. That is 775 passing yards in two games, on pace for a 4,650-yard season. Had receivers not dropped several balls — Aeryn Hampton mishandled one that would have gone for a 49-yard touchdown in the second quarter — Atkinson’s passing yardage might have eclipsed Mannion’s school record of 493 yards against Washington State in 2013.

The current OSU quarterback had another long gainer — a 30-yard bomb to Hampton to the Texas Tech 49-yard-line — called back with the Beavers trailing 28-24 and 1:23 left on the clock. The penalty that nullified the play was an offensive pass interference call on tight end Decorian Temple. It couldn’t have occurred anywhere near where Hampton caught the ball, because he was all alone when he snared it in the Tech secondary. Shephard excoriated the officials from the sidelines over the call for several plays after.

A veteran member of the Fourth Estate (right) looks on as coach JaMarcus Shephard gives a mouthful to a referee late in Oregon State’s loss to Texas Tech

“There was no explanation,” Shephard told me. “They called pass interference. I didn’t think it was pass interference, but that’s what they called, so we have to move on. ... I was frustrated by the call. It would have given our guys a chance to win the game.”

Legree, the 5-10, 170-pound pride of Baltimore, had eight receptions for 240 yards — with 87 yards after catch — and two TDs. And he missed out on a third score on a fourth-quarter bomb that he caught barely out of bounds in the Texas Tech end zone. The yardage was second only to Mike Hass — who piled up 294 receiving yards against Boise State in 2004 — in school history.

“I am kind of like this (mouth wide open in apparent awe) when he makes some of those plays,” OSU linebacker Dylan Layne said of Legree. “He is 18 years old, and Braden is 19 and in his second year of college ball. That connection, it’s unbelievable. I’m so happy they’re on our team.”

Oregon State didn’t make Atkinson or Legree available to the media afterward, which seems inconceivable in that they are the ones Beaver Nation surely most wanted to hear from after their scintillating performance on Saturday. But, as Shephard says, we have to move on.

Legree hauled in a pass and raced 75 yards to paydirt to tie the game at 7-7 in the first quarter. He scored on a 37-yard aerial to draw the Beavers even at 21-21 late in the third quarter. The kid reminds me of former pint-sized OSU receivers such as James Rodgers and Sammie Stroughter, or more recently of Anthony Gould or Silas Bolden.

“Jesse made some incredible plays, some I won’t forget for the rest of my life,” Shephard said. “He doesn’t flinch. The moment is never too big for him. He plays the game like he is in the backyard and someone says, ‘Hey, go to the Buick and turn around.’ He plays the game unconsciously; that is what we are looking for. He doesn’t get too excited when he gets to our sidelines. He is always ready for the next play.”

When Caleb Ojeda knocked through a 34-yard field goal with 13:23 to play, Oregon State led 24-21, and it looked like there might be a second monumental upset involving one of the state’s college teams on Saturday. The Red Raiders gathered themselves and made enough plays to win, but there were plenty of battle scars on both sides after this one.

“Super proud of the fight we had tonight, but there are no moral victories,” OSU offensive tackle Tyler Voltin said. “We knew it was going to be a dogfight. Texas Tech is a damn good team. We respect them, but we expected ourselves to be in that fight. So this one hurts a little bit. We have to do better. We have to execute when opportunities arise.”

For the second straight game, Oregon State’s offense was one-dimensional — terrific in the pass game, impotent with the run. The Beavers managed only 69 net yards rushing against a strong Texas Tech front that included what OSU offensive coordinator Mitch Dahlen called “as good a linebacker corps as there is in the country.”

Oregon State’s defense stuffed the run, too, except when J’Koby Williams got loose on a 38-yard touchdown run in the third quarter. The OSU defense was lively, sacking Hammond four times and registered six tackles-for loss. Texas Tech had only three explosive plays passing (16 yards or more) and two rushing (12 yards or more).

The Beavers, meanwhile, had 10 explosive plays through the air but only one on the ground. Hammond was 20-for-27 passing, but for only 189 yards.

Atkinson, the 6-1, 210-pound transfer from Mercer, where he won the Jerry Rice Award as the nation’s top FCS freshman last season, stayed upright most of the game. He was sacked only twice and scurried deftly out of trouble in the pocket. Dahlen, masterful in only his second game calling plays at the FBS level, found ways for Atkinson to pick apart the Texas Tech secondary with a variety of short, intermediate and deep throws.

Defensive coordinator Mike MacIntyre and his staff emphasized tackling during the week of practice leading up to the Texas Tech game. The OSU defense did a much better job with that than against Houston, and linebacker Aiden Sullivan — with 10 tackles, a sack, two tackles-for-loss and two pass break-ups — stood out.

“We did an outstanding job of actually physically hitting guys and tackling,” Shephard said. “That was very encouraging.”

Shephard spent some time during the game exhorting the fans to bring some noise. Asked about it in the post-game media session, the coach brought out his inner Rowdy Roddy Piper.

“I like to get fired up about playing the game of football,” he began, his voice rising. “I like to enjoy the game of football. I like to be excited about playing the game of football, or else, why would you play the game?

“I want our fans to be pumped up, I want our players to play pumped up, and I want us to give ourselves the best chance to win the game.”

The Beavers gave themselves a chance the past two weeks against a pair of the nation’s premier teams. They will get the opportunity to give Shephard his first victory as a head coach next Saturday when they play host to Montana, which lost to eventual national champion Montana State in the FCS playoffs a year ago. The Grizzlies, 3-0 this season after beating Utah Tech 35-14 Saturday, won’t be an easy out. But the Beavers will be hungry as wolves in a sheep’s den for a victory against any opponent.

“We are changing the culture here,” Layne said. “The fans clapping after the game, that we competed with a top-25 team? BS, man. We want to win games. The standard is, we are going to win these games. I am challenging Beaver Nation to show up and expect us to win. We are coming to win the Pac-12 this year, and we expect to win every game we play.”

Before the season, I predicted Oregon State would start 0-2 —no great revelation there. I didn’t, however, expect them to be as competitive as they were against two excellent Power Four teams. I said the Beavers would be 2-2 after the first month and, with a road trip to Texas-El Paso after Montana, I stand by that.

The eight remaining games will define Shephard’s first season at the OSU helm. The Beavers, who have proved their will to compete, should have a chance to win each of those games. There will be bumps along the way, but Shephard is shepherding what could be a team that Beaver Nation will embrace, even in this era of college football that has turned its back on all but the rich and elite.

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