Saturday, Sept. 14
3:30 p.m. Eastern, 12:30 p.m. Pacific
Fox
The 2024 college football season contains a lot of oddities and weird components. Few are weirder than this: Oregon playing Oregon State in a Big Ten nonconference clash in September. Usually, the Ducks and Beavers would duel at the end of November in Game 12 of the regular season in the Pac-12. Now, with Oregon in the Big Ten, this is a nonconference game and therefore a mid-September contest played in warm late-summer conditions instead of an autumnal, soggy Pacific Northwest environment with umbrellas, ponchos and rain jackets. The fires of a rivalry will burn with the familiar intensity in Corvallis, but so many other aspects of this game and the circumstances in which it will be played will feel profoundly different. How will each team respond to the changes that are part of this rivalry?
More urgently and importantly, how will these teams – so used to playing each other at the end of a long season, when it was the very last game on the slate – handle the very different reality of knowing this game will be followed by nine more contests this season? How will these teams, so early in their overall evolution within the context of a college football season, make adjustments and try to find rhythm in Week 3? This could be a real challenge for both sides, and we will discuss that point a little more below, after the posted odds:
Oregon Ducks-Oregon State Beavers Odds
Spread: Oregon -16.5 (-105), Oregon State +16.5 (-115)
Total: 50.5 (Over -110, Under -110)
Underdog moneyline: Oregon State +550
Hear why T.J. and Jason Powers love Oregon State as the huge underdog at home off “3 Dog Thursday Podcast” by clicking play below,
The Ducks have struggled
The Oregon Ducks have already given up more sacks in 2024 – through two games – than they did all of last season. They have almost matched their total for the 2022 and 2023 seasons combined. That’s crazy, but it’s true. Quarterback Dillon Gabriel is not getting the clean pocket Bo Nix had the previous two seasons, a central factor in the Ducks’ overall success. However, Gabriel is also not responding to pressure as well as he can. Communication between the quarterback and the offensive line has not been smooth. There are a lot of tangled and interconnected issues plaguing the Ducks and their offense.
Keep this point in mind: You might not have seen Oregon’s 37-34 win over Boise State last week, since it was only available on Peacock and not on NBC or an over-the-air channel. You might think – if you didn’t see the game – that Oregon’s offense played really well. 37 points scored is not that bad. However, 14 of those 37 points for Oregon were scored by the special teams unit. Two very long kick returns accounted for two Oregon touchdowns. Oregon therefore scored just 23 points on offense against Boise State. As a point of comparison, Georgia Southern’s offense scored 45 points against Boise State a week earlier. Oregon’s offense has not yet scored more than 24 points in a game this season, and that’s against Idaho – an FCS program – and a leaky Boise State defense. Given how good Oregon State’s defense looks – the Beavers pitched a shutout of San Diego State last week – it’s a very good bet that Oregon State, playing at home, can cover the 16.5-point spread. Oregon State might not have enough offense to win outright, but we love OSU plus the points in this one.