Instant Analysis: Southern Utah

Photo by Randy L. Rasmussen for The Oregonian/OregonLive

The home debut of Jonathan Smith was thoroughly a success... well at least the first half was. The Beavers dominated the first half, outscoring the Thunderbirds 41-7 and out gaining them 454-195. The second half was an interesting one though, as the Beavers played all backups in the skill positions after injury's to RB Artavis Pierce and WR Trevon Bradford in the first half. The second half offensive unit only managed to score 7 points and was out gained 293-195. The final ended up being a 48-25 Beaver win and although the second half may be a cause of concern for the lack of depth that the Beavers have on offense, it shouldn't take away from the performance of the starters in the first half.

Biggest Positive: The running backs stole the show Saturday night. It started with Artavis Pierce dominating the first quarter making each run he made look easier than the last. He made some exceptional cuts at the line of scrimmage and showed great elusiveness in the secondary just like he did last week at Ohio State. Pierce only played for a little over a quarter before leaving the game with a wrist injury. He finished with 11 carries for 91 yards and a touchdown. True freshman Jermar Jefferson stepped in a big way after Pierce left the game. After seeing limited reps in the Ohio State game, Jefferson carried the ball 22 times for 238 yards and 4 touchdowns. His 238 yards are the third most single game rushing yards in school history behind Steven Jackson's 239 yards in 2002 and Bill Enyart's 299 yards in 1968. Jermar made his case to be a strong second option to Pierce in the backfield but the Beavers are going to need Pierce healthy if they want to be successful on offense against better opponents.

Biggest Disappointment: The defensive line had a pretty rough day on Saturday. They had trouble getting pressure on Southern Utah's quarterback all day, and when they did pressure him, he was able to escape a sack and run for positive yardage or somehow find a receiver downfield. Although the final stats will say that the Beavers recorded two sacks, both of those sacks were self inflicted by the Thunderbirds' as the quarterback ran into his own offensive linemen on both of them. The Beavers need to get better at putting pressure on the opposing quarterback or the better teams they play will end up picking them apart with their passing game. This is by far the smallest offensive line the Beavers will play this year and they had serious trouble against it today to say the least.

Biggest Surprise: I was very pleased with the offensive line's performance today. After playing against one of the best defensive line's in all of college football last week, the Beavers held off the Thunderbirds' pass rush for pretty much the whole game. The line only gave up one sack and created a few nice running lanes for the Beavers running backs. The Beavers finished the game with 360 rushing yards and although the running backs made great plays to bust out some big yardage gains, the line provided the holes for those plays to develop. This was one of the smaller defensive line's the Beavers are going to play this year but they mostly dominated them which is something fans should be happy about going forward.

Seeing the final score might make some fans feel nervous about the games coming up for the Beavers, but they need to realize that the starting skill players really didn't take a snap in the second half. The back ups had trouble moving the ball at times which made it harder for the defense (who was also playing some backups) to get consecutive stops like they were in the first half. Ultimately, I think the game next week against Nevada got a whole lot more interesting as the Wolfpack lost on the road to Vanderbilt 41-10.