Monday Morning Tail Slap: It's DJ's Day
DJ Uiagalelei's long-awaited Beaver debut more than lived up to the hype
Happy Labor Day and Happy Beaver Football Victory Monday, everybody! The ‘Monday Morning Tail Slap’ is officially undefeated and untied. You’re welcome.
I had a hard time really finding the pulse of the Oregon State fanbase heading into this one. The first game of the season always brings its own special brand of high hopes and jitters, but this Week One is different from all the Week Ones of yesteryear because, well, everything.
Oregon State’s precarious situation has made the stakes of this season uncomfortably real. Even if on-field results truly don’t mean anything in the boardroom, a looming onus has been put on the shoulders of fans in a way that will make every game, every possession even, feel more important than every single one preceding it. Our own collective cross to bear, as it were.
It’s important to keep this in mind when assessing Jonathan Smith’s and Oregon State’s clinical handling of the San Jose State Spartans at CEFCO Stadium in San Jose on Sunday. Facing an opponent who already put a handful of highlights on film against USC in Week Zero, the Beavs turned in exactly the kind of performance you hope to see in a nationally televised season opener. Very few mistakes and very little drama in a commanding wire-to-wire victory where OSU never needed to even think about shifting out of cruise control.
The list of players who showed out for the orange and black is long. Oregon State is expected to be strong in the trenches and it showed against the Spartans. Defensive linemen James Rawls and Cory Stover were all over the place. The offensive line man-handled the SJSU defensive front, with Taliese Fuaga and Heneli Bloomfield in particular popping up all over the tape with impressive and athletic blocks.
Let’s be real, though. We’ve got to talk about the quarterback. The guy everyone around Beaver Nation has been talking about for months. The former five-star and No. 1 ranked recruit who some have even labeled a bust after going 22-and-freaking-6 as a starter at Clemson. We have to talk about DJ Uiagalelei.
Uiagalelei may not have been perfect today, but he damn near came close. Debuting for the Beavs with a quiet and competent conservatism, the former Clemson Tiger completed 20-of-25 passing attempts for 239 yards and three touchdown passes to three different receivers. He added two more rushing touchdowns on the ground from short yardage to match a previous personal best of five total touchdowns in a single game.
Y’all, the Daunte Culpepper vibes are strong with this one.
Uiagalelei is listed at 6’4” and 252 pounds. Culpepper was listed at 6’4” and 260 pounds when starred at Central Florida and later for the Minnesota Vikings.
Simply put, a quarterback that big and that strong with a head of steam powering towards you is terrifying.
Take a look at Uiagalelei’s two big rushing plays from Oregon State’s opening drive. The first play is a 13-yard called run up the middle of the field for a first down, and the second is his one-yard sneak for a touchdown.
Now watch Culpepper’s highlights from his first career NFL start in Week One of the 2000 season in the video below (or watch the whole thing, Daunte was a gem and we took him for granted) from 0:00 through the 1:24 mark.
Culpepper barreled through the Bear’s defense to score a historic three rushing touchdowns for a Vikings quarterback making their debut.
Comparing Uiagalelei to a first-round draft pick and a would-be-hall-of-famer-if-not-for-that-fucking-knee-injury is a tad irresponsible at this early stage, but I can’t get the similarities out of my head when I watch him run, even in short yardage. Uiagalelei has many qualities we’ve seldom seen in Beaver quarterbacks in the history of the program. It will be compelling to see how often he uses his legs this year and what kind of designed runs offensive coordinator Brian Lindgren cooks up. DJU rushed for 545 yards and seven touchdowns last season, and for a total of 913 yards and 15 touchdowns in his three years in ‘Death Valley,’ and he’s now playing behind one of the best offensive lines in college football to clear the lanes for him.
Speaking of the Beavers’ front five, Uiagalelei was quick to praise them for their Week One performance, especially on his 31-yard third quarter touchdown strike to Jeremiah Noga. Had the line given him any more time with a clean pocket, the clock would have run out.
“I could have made a sandwich back there,” he said. “The o-line played an unbelievable game today, the running backs ran really well. I thought it was a good team win today.
“I had fun today. It was exciting. It was just fun to be out there and be able to play football again.”
Oregon State will face tougher opponents than the Spartans in 2023 (and hopefully in the early days of 2024…), but if Oregon State’s experienced offensive line—back-to-back finalists for the Joe Moore Award annually given to the best offensive line in the country—continues to bless their quarterback with a clean pocket, there’s nothing standing in the way of Uiagalelei having the best season a quarterback has ever had in Corvallis.
There’s not a Randy Moss style receiver waiting on the other end of deep ball after deep ball like Culpepper was privileged to enjoy early in his professional career, but the Beavers don’t need that (though it would be nice if it’s ever on the menu). A total of nine different receivers caught passes on Sunday and four of them had receptions of 20 yards or more. Behind their powerful offensive line, a band of reliable pass-catchers, and one of the best running back rooms in the country led by 2022 Pac 12 Offensive Freshman of the Year Damien Martinez, and Deshaun Fenwick, the Beaver offense doesn’t need to try to be the ‘Greatest Show on Turf.’ They have everything they need to be clinical killers slowly edging defenses to a death of a thousand cuts.
It looks like they finally have their silent killer under center and they’re looking to bleed much more than just the clock.