2018 College Football Team Previews: Oregon State Beavers
Oregon State Beavers
Location: Corvallis, OR
Coach: Jonathan Smith (0-0) 1st Season
Stadium: Recer Stadium (Capacity: 43,363)
CSJ Projections:
12th: Pac-12 (6th in North Division)
2nd: Oregon
107th: FBS
119th: Division I
2017 In A Sentence: OSU, which stumbled out of the gate with troubling non-conference performances, eventually finished with just a 1-11 (only win was over FCS Portland State by 3) and included losing head coach Gary Anderson on Oct. 9th on what was termed “mutual parting ways”.
Biggest Shoes to Fill: LB Manase Hungalu earned honorable mention all-Pac-12 honors while recording a team-high 97 tackles (six for loss and a team-best two interceptions.
Key Player: QB Jake Luton returns for his senior season after recovering from thoracic spine surgery in the off-season. He was hurt in the fourth game of last season and threw for 859 yards with both four touchdowns and interceptions. His size and arm are a good fit for new coach Smith’s offensive attack and will be a key to any improvement for this team.
Fearless Prediction: The good news coming off just a single win season and one that the team was outscored in total 516-248 last season is that there in not much further the team can go down so this team will undoubtedly improve under former OSU quarterback and now Coach Smith. It will likely take another season of lumps before a bigger improvement is made, however, so 2-3 wins is likely the best case scenario for the Beavers this season.
Originally from LaMoure, North Dakota, Kent is a 1996 graduate of North Dakota State University. His prior writing experience is over 15 years having previously worked with D2football.com, I-AA.org, and College Sporting News before coming to College Sports Journal in 2016. His main focus is college football is the Missouri Valley Football Conference within the Division I FCS. And in 2017, he began also to look at the FBS Group of Five conferences of the American Athletic, Conference USA, Mid-American, Mountain West, and Sun Belt.
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