Berkelium97: Can you believe it has been 20 years since the Bears have won consecutive home games against the Beavers? Most of the team wasn’t even born yet when that last happened.

Every single category earned a passing grade! The most productive game of Patrick Laird’s career propelled the ground game to the highest score of the week. Matt Anderson’s record-breaking day certainly helped the special teams score. He and Siemieniec had to earn that score on their own, as the offense gave Dylan Klumph the day off. If Klumph had been a senior, do you think Wilcox would have called for a ceremonial punt as the final play of the game? If I were a coach, I’d definitely consider it so that he could see the field on the last home game of his career.

Odd hypotheticals aside, coaching again earned strong scores. I am looking forward to seeing what the coaching staff can do during this bye week to plan for a very important game against the Lobsterbacks. The Axe has spent too much time imprisoned in Palo Alto and it’s time for it to return home. You all are feeling more confident about a win over LSJU, as our predictions of a win have climbed a bit since the preseason. A one-dimensional team relying on a mildly hobbled Bryce Love has given hope to us all.

Awards

It’s awards season every week around here. We’ll recognize the most positive, most negative, and most accurate grades.

Justinoppugnable!

First up, the highest grades of the week.

We can’t hand out 27 awards like we did last time we won, but this will do nicely.

Justinsalubrious!

There wasn’t much to dislike on Saturday, but someone has to give the lowest grades of the week.

The lowest scores of the week are all good enough to pass without a curve!

Finally, we recognize those whose scores were closest to the community average.

The Voice of Reason

These are some impressively low deviations. Not as impressive as the fact that I earned a third consecutive VoR.

Let’s have a look at the comments to see your thoughts on the final home game of the year.

GoldenBearsBandwagon: One win away from bowl contention. Let’s go!

Gameday Experience

Bowlesman80: Tuned in late, but liked what I saw at the end of the first half.

Rocksanddirt: Watched the game at the grad. In Davis. Fairly quiet, some folks were th were there to enjoy stanfurd coug'n it.

Nor-Cal Scott: Disappointed in the crowd size. It was Senior Day and those 4&5 year guys deserve better for what they've gone through.

If your football game lasts more than 4 hours, call a doctor: Appreciated that the USC band was not there.

Wiata78: Not too exciting. Sometimes it's nice to have a boring game.

Azulviejo: TV has ruined the game day experience, and Larry Scott

Prd74 : No rain. No cold. No students.

Willis Chong: Pac-12 network did not suck that badly.

Texashaterforlife: Stanford lost and Cal won; I had a great gameday experience. The game not being Pac12afterdark helped.

Pass Offense

Yogi Bear: Bowers had what was probably his best day this year. Made some tough throws (the TD to Wharton was his best) and was probably his most accurate day of the year. Took one bad sack in the red zone, but followed it up with the TD to Wharton.

CoBears: Bowers looked pretty good overall, but we should have been able to take advantage of their depleted secondary, particularly with the two targeting ejections. I suppose we didn't need to take deep shots with Laird running free, but still, it wasn't the Bears' best performance in the passing game.

Nor-Cal Scott: Ross was 80%, to 7 different receivers

LeonPowe: #ALWAYSRUN

Sacman701: Mostly worked well against a sketchy defense. Bowers wasn't on fire today, but he made good decisions and put it close enough to the receivers to get the job done.

Uthaithani: Pass offense looked very good, Bowers looked sharp and accurate. Pass protection was excellent.

Sacalum: Bowers was "Steady Eddie." Didn't take too many risks.

Mitchgobears: No deep threat, but they made it work.

BTown85: Shhhhh......very quietly Bowers had a very good game!!!!!

Sup_doe_library: I'm really excited to see Y2 in the BB offense, and I like the way it's been built around Kanawai "Cooper" Noa. Getting more verticality from the WR's and more consistent play from Ross will only help.

Run Offense

highly improbable: Good Laird.

Bowlesman80: LAIRD! AND ENWERE!

Oski74: Patrick Laird! Beautiful change of pace and quick jump moves today. got around the edge a few times. Love to see more contribution from the backups. O-line did it's job. Fumble cost some points.

M4ld: Our Laird and Savior rushed for 200+ yards!!!

Wiata78: The few times Vic ran, it was good to see him run forward rather than backward.

LeonPowe: The only thing that doesn't get it a perfect grade is an inability to get 1 yard on 3 chances.

Sacman701: Two negatives: the failure to convert 3 times in a row in short yardage in the first half and the fumble at the beginning of the second half. Otherwise, the Beavs got paved. The line opened big holes and Laird hit them with authority.

Sacalum: Patrick is "Laird of the Manor." Love his vision and deceptive speed. What a savior among the walk-ons.

Willis Chong: Laird for UC Chancellor!

BTown85: I love me some PLaird. Dude is a beast of a walk-on!!!! And stronger than he looks.

Pass Defense

Yogi Bear: Gave up some unfortunate long completions, but generally we looked a lot better than against Colorado.

CoBears: Gave up some deep balls, which was disappointing, and seemed to be indicative of breakdowns we suffered against Colorado too. Otherwise, pretty consistent. They didn't consistently move the ball on us via the air (or the ground).

Nor-Cal Scott: While OSU did not pass well, they had 4 plays range from 25-34 yards. DB's are still the weak link.

Azulviejo: flimsy, floosy

Prd74 : Good enough to win.

Uthaithani: Defense gave up a lot of plays and points to a very bad offense. That's not good.

Willis Chong: Seemed okay, but out of position more often than before. Things would have been much worse if the OSU receivers didn't their passes. Are we getting tired?

BTown85: AWESOME! Just being NEAR the receivers made them drop the ball!!!

Run Defense

Yogi Bear: Looked pretty bad on Oregon State's first drive and then a lot better the rest of the day.

CoBears: Solid. Where Nall killed us last year, this year he was bottled up virtually all game.

Bowlesman80: MUCH BETTER!

Nor-Cal Scott: Solid performance holding Beavs to 104yds, and Nall to 12/35.

LeonPowe: Nall didn't go crazy!

Azulviejo: don't drop you head, before you tackle

Prd74 : Nall got a taste of our new 2017 defense. Not happy.

Sacman701: Very solid. Line wasn't very disruptive but they didn't get plowed like they did last year, and positioning and tackling in the back 7 were consistently good. Nall wasn't much of a factor this time.

Uthaithani: Good job bottling up Nall but again D gave up a lot of points to a very bad offense. Bears will get shredded against Furd and UCLA unless this defense is much better in the last two games.

Mitchgobears: none for Nall.

BTown85: To quote The Who, "We won't get Nalled again!!!!"

Special Teams

CoBears: Great job on the field goals. The fumble on the kickoff wasn't cool. Their kickoff returns were also a little too good.

Bowlesman80: Anderson! I am not worthy! Forgive my previous criticism!

Nor-Cal Scott: NO PUNTS! Matt breaks Career Scoring Record, and Davis and Wharton are doing very well on returns.

LeonPowe: Matty Ice!

Prd74 : Kick offs going into the endzone. Awesome. Field goal kicker breaks record and looks solid. Awesome. No punts today. Unbelievably awesome.

Uthaithani: Congratulations to Matt Anderson on breaking the record with a great kicking game. I'd score this higher, but some of the runbacks were foolish at best.

Willis Chong: No missed FGs. KOs looked good. KO coverage had a few holes.

Texashaterforlife: satisfactory

Coaching

Yogi Bear: They had the team ready to play. Not too much strategy needed for this one - we just controlled the line of scrimmage on both ends and that was pretty much it.

Bowlesman80: I believe! Where's the Kool-Aid?

Azulviejo: Eastern Washington? really? good head coach? what happened, no red zone in division II?

Prd74 : We’re 5 and 5, baby! Phil Steele, Athlon, and Street and Smith’s can EAT IT!!!

Sacman701: The team came out ready to play unlike last week. Going tempo worked well to keep our boots on OSU's throat.

Sacalum: Pretty vanilla. But that's OK if we win.

Mitchgobears: Prepared and went with what worked. We need to get touchdowns rather than field goals to win the next games. Time to figure out the red zone.

Texashaterforlife: meh

BTown85: Forget this win; they are a bad team and we did what we needed to to win. But don't rely on this for anything else the rest of the season!!!!!!

Overall Performance

Yogi Bear: Nice solid win against a team we should always beat at home. We've had a lot of letdowns against Oregon State in the past, so good to see we didn't blow it.

CoBears: I am proud of where this team stands with two games to go. They have outperformed expectations, and they have a chance to make this season one to remember with a couple wins on the road to close it out. Can't wait to root on the Bears from the stands at Big Game! Go Bears! Beat stanfurd!

Bowlesman80: Faith affirmed!

Oski74: Team seemed well prepared and more athletic than Oregon St. on both sides of the ball. More controlled and aggressive play this week. Plaudits to the coaching staff,

Nor-Cal Scott: Granted, OSU is the 12th best team in the Pac12, but the team looked good. At least on tv. P12Net studio guys praised Cal's coaches and how this team has such a different attitude from last year. They also talked about all of our unfortunate injuries to playmakers on both O and D.

If your football game lasts more than 4 hours, call a doctor: The Beavers stayed in the game well into the 2nd half, but then again they've done that recently against teams thought to be better than Cal.

Azulviejo: B-. except for Laird A+

Prd74 : Great Senior Day! WE WANT THE AXE!!!

Sacman701: The Beavs are at the bottom of the league for a reason, and we beat them decisively the way a mid-pack team should beat a bottom feeder.

Uthaithani: Jeckyll and Hyde football continues. This week was Good Bears. One more on-again performance and they get a bowl! But I doubt we've seen the last of Bad Bears, either.

Sacalum: "Goode golly, Miss Molly." Another season ending injury? Can't take much more of this.

Willis Chong: Hopefully the team can build on this over the bye week. It will be hard to get that 6th win, but let's see if we can do it.

Mitchgobears: Another complete game for the offense and defense. Why can't we be consistent?

Texashaterforlife: expected

BTown85: I live in Oregon; thanks for beating ONE of the two teams from up here !!!!!

Sup_doe_library: I shouldn't be so excited about beating the worst team in the conference, but at the very least it means we're not the worst team in the conference!