Beavers defense answers the call in the second half.

It was truly a tale of two halves yesterday as far as the Beavers defensive unit is concerned, and in post-game press conference senior defensive lineman Dylan Wynn had a perfect take on their performance.

“On the first half there were some obvious struggles and things that we need to work on as a unit. I like to think of it as a little bit of the first game jitters going on. The defense started to get where we should be when it comes to how we want to execute stuff.”

After giving up 223 total yards, including 102 yards on the ground to PSU quarterback Paris Penn, the Beavers locked down the Vikings offense to a tune of 40 total yards in the second half en route to a 29-14 victory.

Two quick interceptions in the third quarter by senior safety Tyrequek Zimmerman led to six points for Oregon State, putting them in the driver’s seat and ended up being all the defense needed as they shutout Portland State for the remainder of the game.

“We just had to focus and keep the game mentally simple,” Zimmerman said after the game. “We already knew what we were doing wrong so by keeping it simple we stopped making mistakes.”

The two interceptions (the first two of Zimmerman’s career) were out of five total takeaways the Beavers forced in the second half, three of which resulted in points.

Offensively speaking, OSU gets the Larry David “pretty, prettttttty, pretttttttttty good” stamp of approval, ammasing 502 total yards, including 125 on the ground from Storm Woods.

“They looked great,”said quarterback Sean Mannion, when asked about the offense’s performance. “Our o-line set the tone up front all day with very physical play. The backs ran well and finished a lot of their runs.”

Aside from being sacked three times, it was a typical day at the office for Mannion, whose 328 passing yards put him at 12^th all time in the Pac-12. Expect him to continue to surpass several infamous names as the season progresses.

Oregon State travels to Hawaii next Saturday; check back later this week to see who and what I will be watching in this Beavers/Warriors matchup.