Brinkhater and Beavs Bite It

Tonight, the Beavs lost their token chance at the Rose Bowl and Brinkhater lost his perfect season of Cougar prognostications, as the Cougs turned in a frustrating 24-10 defeat.

Overall, the defense looked quite inspired and Levy showed in my book that he is the man of the future. IF you saw the kid run and saw his arm strength, you know that he HAS to be the guy moving forward. He really does have the stuff to develop into a fine winning Pac-10 QB.

Here’s what I saw via the online streaming option from the island:

• Turpin had a really nice sack on Alexander late in the 4th where he blew off the center and guard and then chased and caught Alexander on the sideline. Very impressive.

• The D actually looked really good. We obviously still have problems in the secondary, but the linebackers in particular looked really fast and we shot the gaps well.

• We had a cool (almost) 3-8 look on defense in the second half where we were stunting guys all over the place. We were fast and aggressive and were actually quite fun to watch.

• I think we’ll really miss Trent at times next year, but watching Bland and Mattingly yesterday was quite exciting.

• That said, the offense still lacks so much imagination although there were a lot of missed opportunities. Levy has the happiest of happy feet right now, but as I noted on the post, he has good Pac-10 speed for the position and has the type of arm strength that Brinkhater has been dreaming of for the last five years.

In reference to someone’s comments tonight, we DID have a chance to win that game. Levy missed Gibson by 7 inches for six in the 3rd on a go pattern. We missed recovering a fumble on a punt that would have made it a 7 point game late, and Levy overshot Norrell on a surefire touch late in the game.

Plus, Giles’ fumble following the blocked FG was beyond ridiculous.

Final notes: Tardy again ran like a champ–really, really hard. With a healthy Ivory, Mitz, and Montgomery entering the fold, expect more ball control next year. That said, if you saw the action on the play action with Levy in the game, it makes you wonder what could have been.

You can all be proud of the effort they put into the contest. In the end, they bought in.

Kudos to the defensive coaching staff for bringing the boys along in the last three games.

The offense, meanwhile, needs a whole lot of work.

Thanks for sticking with us through this season.