Spring Break
Defense wins bowl battle
Terry Horstman
Issue date: 1/6/09 Section: Sports
Chalk up another bowl victory for Mike Riley and the Oregon State Beavers. In the Sun Bowl against the Pittsburgh Panthers, the Beavers won a defensive battle with a score of 3-0. The win improved Coach Riley's record in bowl games at OSU to 5-0 and helped the Pac-10 to reach a 5-0 record in bowl games this year.
Traditional football fans say this game was ugly with the way both offenses tried to move the ball down the field; this seems to be a very fair statement. However, if you read between the lines in this game, you would have seen one of the best defensive performances in football this year.
Pittsburgh running back LeSean McCoy was held to a meager 85 yards averaging just 3.5 yards per carry. Going into this game, McCoy was thought of as one of the best backs in the nation with 21 touchdowns and 1488 yards on the season, but the Beaver defense came out angry and proved that they still knew how to play after giving up nearly 700 yards in the Civil War.
Victor Butler turned in possibly his best performance as a Beaver in his last game with 11 tackles, 4 sacks and 4 hurries. Most importantly, he forced and recovered a fumble in the fourth quarter after Pittsburgh moved into Beaver territory and halted one of the Panthers very few successful drives of the afternoon.
"I said I want to be the guy to make a play," Butler told beaverfootball.com after the game. "I didn't know if anybody was around to scoop it, and we couldn't give them the ball there."
It was the perfect performance to cap off another great season for Victor Butler. Fellow senior and Butler's partner in crime, Slade Norris, also got in on the action, registering 1.5 sacks which brought Norris to 10.5 sacks on the season. When teamed with Butler, the duo - players once thought of as undersized defensive lineman - came up with 23 sacks giving offensive coordinators and quarterbacks headaches all season.
Butler and Norris were spectacular, but every member of the Beaver defense had their moment in the Sun Bowl. Senior cornerback Keenan Lewis set the tone early as he came up with his 4th interception of the year on the Panther's 2nd play from scrimmage. Lewis, a starter since his sophomore year, started in his 47th game - the 3rd most in school history.
Traditional football fans say this game was ugly with the way both offenses tried to move the ball down the field; this seems to be a very fair statement. However, if you read between the lines in this game, you would have seen one of the best defensive performances in football this year.
Pittsburgh running back LeSean McCoy was held to a meager 85 yards averaging just 3.5 yards per carry. Going into this game, McCoy was thought of as one of the best backs in the nation with 21 touchdowns and 1488 yards on the season, but the Beaver defense came out angry and proved that they still knew how to play after giving up nearly 700 yards in the Civil War.
Victor Butler turned in possibly his best performance as a Beaver in his last game with 11 tackles, 4 sacks and 4 hurries. Most importantly, he forced and recovered a fumble in the fourth quarter after Pittsburgh moved into Beaver territory and halted one of the Panthers very few successful drives of the afternoon.
"I said I want to be the guy to make a play," Butler told beaverfootball.com after the game. "I didn't know if anybody was around to scoop it, and we couldn't give them the ball there."
It was the perfect performance to cap off another great season for Victor Butler. Fellow senior and Butler's partner in crime, Slade Norris, also got in on the action, registering 1.5 sacks which brought Norris to 10.5 sacks on the season. When teamed with Butler, the duo - players once thought of as undersized defensive lineman - came up with 23 sacks giving offensive coordinators and quarterbacks headaches all season.
Butler and Norris were spectacular, but every member of the Beaver defense had their moment in the Sun Bowl. Senior cornerback Keenan Lewis set the tone early as he came up with his 4th interception of the year on the Panther's 2nd play from scrimmage. Lewis, a starter since his sophomore year, started in his 47th game - the 3rd most in school history.
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