Oregon State Spring Football Winners and Losers

With the Oregon State spring football game now in the books, its time to take a look at the major winners and losers of the last four weeks of spring practice.

Winners:

Sean Canfield - With Lyle Moevao sitting out spring practices due to recent surgery on his rotator cuff, Canfield was given the large majority of the reps with the first team offense. This is almost the exact opposite situation from spring practice last year when Canfield was the one recovering from surgery and Lyle got all of the repetitions. In the first scrimmage of the spring Canfield completed 12 of 21 passes for 278 yards and 4 touchdowns including a pair of 70+ yard touchdown passes to projected starter Darrell Catchings. It appears, at least for the moment, that Canfield has taken a strong hold on the starting quarterback position and will carry that title into fall practice.

Darrell Catchings - The number one beneficary of Canfield's hot spring has been Darrell Catchings, the projected replacement for Sammie Stroughter at wide receiver. In 2007 Catchings earned a starting role as a true freshman due to injuries and a lack of depth. However, with the return of Stroughter and the emergence of Shane Morales last year, Catchings was relegated to role player status. Judging by the way he's been playing this spring, it looks like he's ready for a breakout year. Through the first two spring scrimmages Catchings had 13 catches for 423 yards and 4 touchdowns.

Defensive Front Seven - After losing four of the starting front seven from 2008, one of the focal points of spring practice was finding the impact starters to replace them. It looks like OSU may have done that with the way the defensive front played this spring. Newcomers Kevin Frahm and Ben Terry look like carbon copies of 2009 NFL draft picks Slade Norris and Victor Butler. Both players have great speed off the edge and will likely pile up the sacks in the upcoming season. Meanwhile, returning starters Keaton Kristick and Stephen Paea have appeared on a couple of preseason watch lists and will anchor the defense up the middle.

2008 Senior Class - In this years NFL draft OSU had a school record 7 players chosen. In order they were: Andy Levitre (Buffalo), Keenan Lewis (Pittsburgh), Victor Butler (Dallas), Slade Norris (Oakland), Brandon Hughes (San Diego), Al Afalava (Chicago), and Sammie Stroughter (Tampa Bay). Since then former wide receiver Shane Morales and former tackle Tavita Thompson have signed free agent contracts with Arizona and New York (Jets) respectively.

Losers:

Secondary - Replacing the four starters in the secondary proved to be a tough task for the beavers this spring. On most days the first and second team offenses took turns running circles around the new corners and safeties. If OSU hopes to be competitive in the QB heavy Pac 10, their new secondary will have to take a couple of large steps forward before games start. However, if the spring game was any indication, it appears they may have started figuring things out with the three interceptions recorded by the starting unit during the scrimmage.

Running Backs - Before spring drills even started OSU was made aware that they would be without backup running back Jeremy Francis who is helping his mother recover from a heart attack in Florida. Francis was a capable backup and played an important role in OSU's Sun Bowl victory last season. Meanwhile, Jacquizz Rodgers was held out of all contact spring drills as a precautionary measure while he recovers from a cracked scapula suffered in last years victory over the University of Arizona. This left the bulk of the first team carries to Ryan Mccants. However towards the end of spring practices, Mccants suffered a knee ligament tear and will need offseason surgery. Due to these injuries the spring game primarily featured redshirt freshman Jovan Stevenson and true freshman Jordan Jenkins at running back.

Knees - As it turned out Ryan McCants was not the only player to suffer a bad knee injury in spring drills. Backup MLB Tony Wilson and WR Kaulin Krebs will both need surgery to repair torn ligaments in their knees as a result of injuries suffered in practices leading up to the spring game. To make matters worse, projected starting tackle Timi Oshinowo went down with a knee injury during the game and will have an MRI to find out how bad it is.

Marketing - It started last year with the "Let it rage" marketing campaign. This spring it transformed into "I am orange". I know we have a bunch of players that wear orange uniforms as members of the OSU football team, but I don't think I've seen any players that are actually orange. And just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, the slogan that goes with it is: "I am gone before they hear the thunder." What does that even mean? And what the hell does it have to do with being orange? Maybe somebody could explain to me how this ad campaign improves the image of our program but I highly doubt it.