Oregon State Beavers running back Ryan Nall powers past the Washington State Cougars defense for an amazing 89-yard touchdown run on Saturday night.
The Oregon State Beavers were 17.5-point underdogs at home to the Pac-12 North rival Washington State Cougars. Gary Andersen’s Beavers were 2-5 on the season, while Mike Leach’s Cougars were 5-2.
Night games in Corvallis tend to give the Beavers a bigger lift than most teams. Reser Stadium was rocking and Beavers running back Ryan Nall was rolling early. Here he is crushing the Cougars on an 89-yard touchdown run up the middle to make it 7-0 Beavers after the made PAT.
It was a great play design by Oregon State to use the jet sweep fake to open up a hole right up the middle for Nall to run through on a halfback dive. He accelerated wonderfully through the gap. By the time the Cougars saw he had the ball, Nall was off to the races.
Nall powered ahead of four Cougar defenders on this impressive score. All of Reser Stadium couldn’t believe that he was going to take it to the house on the supposedly better Washington State team.
Washington State tends to be a team under Leach that will beat the eventual Pac-12 Champion in regular season play, but will mess up against inferior competition. That’s not a great sign for a program that plays down to a lesser opponent.
It’s never been that the Beavers don’t play hard for Andersen. Oregon State just doesn’t yet have the talent of its Pac-12 contemporaries. The Beavers are still technically alive to reach a holiday season bowl.
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Not all 12 Pac-12 teams are going bowling, but Oregon State can definitely beat arch rival Oregon in the Civil War at season’s end. The Ducks are all sorts of bad in 2016. That’s good news for the Beavers of Corvallis.