A few observations on the Beavers and Ducks after debut Saturday of Pac-12 football …

COUGARS 38, BEAVERS 28:

Like most of you, I expected better of Oregon State in its opener — much better.

I predicted victory by a 31-24 count. I figured with a new coach (Nick Rolovich), a true freshman starting his first game at quarterback (Jayden de Laura) and a preseason All-Pac-12 selection missing due to a back injury (running back Max Borghi), the Beavers would be the better team in Corvallis.

Instead, Jonathan Smith’s club laid an egg in the most important game in the Smith era at OSU.

I say that in part because of the rest of Oregon State’s schedule as we know it — Washington, California, Oregon, Utah and Stanford. The Beavers are likely to be underdogs the rest of the way.

They needed to beat Wazzu. Instead, they came out flat in both halves offensively, played poorly on the defensive side in the second half and left a lot more room for improvement than they’d hoped to.

• Oregon State punted on six of its first seven possessions. The offensive line didn’t get the job done, QB Tristan Gebbia looked off-kilter and — except for a 93-yard drive late in the second quarter — the offense was offensive.

“You want to come out and play your best and we didn’t do that,” Smith said after the game. “It took us awhile to get any kind of rhythm going offensively, and even in the second half, going three-and-out twice in a row (to start the third quarter). That put us in a hole we just couldn’t get out of it.”

• Once Gebbia got going, though, he showed poise in the pocket and precision in his passing. Over the final quarter and a half, the 6-2, 200-pound junior completed 24 of 28 passes for 237 yards, at one point connecting on 10 in a row.

“He got to playing a little bit better in the second half, where it almost turned into desperation mode,” Smith said. “He gave us a chance in the end; it just wasn’t nearly enough.”

Actually, the Beavers got close to a miracle comeback, drawing to within 31-28 after a touchdown and two-point conversion with 2:39 left.

Then, after a failed on-side kick gave Washington State the ball at the OSU 44, Travell Harris burst up the middle on first down virtually untouched for a touchdown to ice the Cougars’ victory.

“We sold out on the run,” Smith said, “and missed a gap.”

• The Beavers’ veteran defense kept them in the game in the first half, even with some missed tackles. In the second half, a decent performance got much worse.

“It would have been nice to stop that last drive in the first half, but I was pleased with how it looked in the first half defensively,” Smith said. “Not so much in the second half. We had a tough time getting stops. Got creased on a few runs that were painful.”

• Oregon State’s plan against de Laura was to rush mostly three and four defenders and hope the youngster would make mistakes. There were times early when he could find no receivers open, but he gained confidence throughout the game. By the end, the Beaver D had made the 6-foot, 195-pound de Laura look like another graduate of St. Louis High in Honolulu — Marcus Mariota.

“You have to pick your poison in regards to overly pressuring the quarterback,” Smith said. “(The Cougars) have that speed on the outside you have to hold up in coverage. We did not affect (de Laura) enough tonight. You could tell how comfortable he was.”

Said OSU safety Jaydon Grant: “He’s mobile. He trusts his receivers. He picked us apart in the secondary.”

“Jayden made some really good throws,” Rolovich. “He’s going to see the (game video) and see how much more is out there, but he was confident when he got off the plane, and this moment wasn’t too big for him. Early in that game, you could see the respect he had earned from his teammates.”

It would have made sense to gamble and step up the pressure with more blitz packages in the second half. The Beavers didn’t, and de Laura made them pay. Speaking generally, Smith said as much afterward: “We have to make some adjustments at halftime and then go execute them; that didn’t take place at all.”

• The Cougars didn’t skip a beat without Borghi. Senior Deon McIntosh stepped in to rush for 157 yards and a TD on only 18 carries. Wazzu’s attack was as balanced as it can get — 229 yards rushing, 227 yards passing.

OSU’s junior All-America linebacker Hamilcar Rashed made two tackles. Three or four times, he had his hands on McIntosh at the line of scrimmage only to let him slip away. Rashed wasn’t alone. The Beavers were in position to make tackles several times and came up empty-handed.

“You get in open spaces where there are a lot of one-on-one tackles against some athletes, it’s not easy,” Smith said. “but there’s no question, we need to tackle better. First game, but we have to definitely work to improve it.”

• The kicking game was a big minus for Oregon State. Senior Caleb Lightbourn had one punt partially blocked and miraculously got off another one 23 yards — left-footed — after retrieving a high snap.

Sophomore Everett Hayes missed a 47-yard field goal that could have gotten the Beavers to within 38-31 in the final minute, moments have mis-hitting an onside kick try that didn’t travel 10 yards.

“There was a lot of contribution from a lot of people to this loss,” Smith said.

That includes the OSU coaching staff. There was the puzzling decision to try for a 2-point conversion after scoring a touchdown with 8:32 remaining to cut Wazzu’s lead to 31-20. A successful PAT would have made it 31-22 — still a two-score difference.

“Going into the game, we knew at some point we were going to go for two,” Smith said. “As the scoreboard was going, we felt like doing it a little bit earlier. … We were going to go for two in the fourth quarter of this one.”

An unreasonable gamble, but Smith has done that kind of thing before.

There were a wasted 10-15 seconds after OSU trailing 14-7, moved quickly to the WSU 41 in the final minute of the first half. The Beavers should have used one of their remaining three timeouts to preserve the clock. After the long count, Gebbia was sacked and only 11 seconds remained, blowing a chance to score some important points.

There was senior Trevon Bradford receiving a first-quarter punt at the OSU 3, the Beavers winding up with possession at the 7. Surely a player error there, but it also reflects on the coaches.

• Oregon State’s line got things together enough to help spring Jermar Jefferson for some good runs. The 5-10, 215-pound junior rushed for 120 yards and three TDs on only 21 carries. Bradford rebounded from a couple of early drops to finish with seven catches for 78 yards and a score. Sophomore tight end Luke Musgrave showed his potential on a 29-yard reception, though he stumbled and fell just short of the goal line on the play.

There were some positives and a whole lot of negatives.

It’s only one game, but it left the impression that it could be a long, short season for the Beavers, if you know what I mean.

DUCKS 35, CARDINAL 14

We knew Oregon was going to be good, even with the loss of quarterback Justin Herbert, the best offensive lineman in the nation (Penei Sewell) as well as three members of the secondary (Brady Breeze, Thomas Graham and Jevon Holland) who declared early for the NFL draft.

We still don’t know how good the Ducks are, even with the routine win over a Stanford team that was without starting quarterback Davis Mills and its best receiver (Connor Wedington, who caught 51 passes a year ago) due to COVID.

The Cardinal, 4-8 last season, sustained 10 penalties for 100 yards and got an unbelievable performance out of Jet Toner, the Pac-12 placekicker of the year in 2017 and ’18. The senior went 0 for 4 on field-goal attempts, missing one in each quarter, each one from a shorter distance (48, 40, 35 and 27). Seemed like the Cardinal’s Toner simply ran out of ink.

“He had a bad day today,” Stanford coach David Shaw said afterward. “Sometimes you just say, ‘I had a bad day.’ ”

The Ducks, meanwhile, earned a passing grade in the opener of what will be the strangest of all seasons.

• Oregon amassed 29 first downs, 269 yards rushing and 496 yards total offense. The Ducks were 9-for-11 on third down. Those are solid marks against any FBS defense.

Quarterback Tyler Shough threw the ball well in his first career start, completing 17 of 26 passes for 227 yards and a TD with one interception. Perhaps more important, the 6-5, 220-pound sophomore ran 11 times for 85 yards and a score, showing good instinct and speed in the run/pass option. It appears that offensive coordinator Joe Moorhead will give Shough more latitude to run the ball than did Moorhead’s predecessor, Marcus Arroyo, with Shough’s predecessor, Herbert.

Coach Mario Cristobal said before the game that both Shough and the senior transfer from Boston College, Anthony Brown, would play. So much for that.

• Shough threw some good deep balls and his receivers made some great catches. Sophomore Mycah Pittman’s one-handed 44-yard grab was a staple on SportsCenter’s top-10 plays. Senior Johnny Johnson hauled in a 38-yard gem as well as a spectacular one in the end zone that was nullified by penalty.

• Oregon’s defense got the job done. Stanford ran for 197 yards and two TDs. The Ducks’ defensive front looked soft at times, but also made some plays and held the Cardinal to five first downs rushing. The UO secondary acquitted itself well, but Stanford isn’t a true test.

The Ducks have some impressive freshman defenders, including 6-3, 250-pound linebacker Noah Sewell — Penei’s kid brother.

• Late in the first quarter, Oregon-Stanford got moved from ABC to ESPN News for awhile due to Joe Biden’s speech, pre-empting the Johnsonville ACL Cornhole Championships. It was a shame for cornhole aficionados aside, but really, not as bad a tradeoff as it sounds. The Ducks put on a pretty good show in their first time out since the 28-27 Rose Bowl victory over Wisconsin.

Readers: what are your thoughts on the Beavers and Ducks games over the weekend? Share your comments below.

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