The 11th-ranked Oregon State Beavers hung on until the final minutes but eventually fell short against No. 5 Washington Huskies on Saturday, losing 22-20 at Reser Stadium in Corvallis.

After the Beavers’ (8-3, 5-3 Pac-12 Conference) rain-sodden defeat, head coach Jonathan Smith talked to reporters about the game.

Here’s a transcript of Smith’s remarks, edited for brevity and clarity.

Smith: It was definitely a tough one to swallow, you know. I appreciate our guys, our effort. This crowd was awesome tonight again, the place was packed. We just came up a couple of points short. The weather was a huge factor, I thought in the first half – and give (Washington) some credit, I thought they handled the weather better in the first half – they scored some points … But I thought we regrouped at halftime and got the early score, got the early touchdown and then just kept on chipping away at it, played our brand of football … Time of possession was huge in our favor, the whole thing. But they had two more points than us.

Q: Do you think Washington’s defense is underrated?

Smith: No, they’re solid – they are. They got some good players over there, their scheme is solid. I do think elements helped the defensive side tonight, but no, that team just knows how to win. Obviously, this ain’t a fluke for how many wins they’ve ripped off in a row. I give them a bunch of credit.

Q: You’ve lost three games by a combined total of eight points. How do you feel like the season’s going to be remembered?

Smith: It’s tough to say right now. Anytime you lose and it’s close like this, there’s always a play or two that you’d rather have back or couldn’t make type of thing. Again, I appreciate this group, this senior class. I mean, 20-some-odd of those guys guys got here the same year I did. They’ve been through a lot and completely changed this place, so I’m really proud of this team.

Q: Do you think the weather was a factor in the passing game football teams?

Smith: Yeah, I think for both teams. I thought they made a couple plays catching it and they dropped a few balls just like we did. The ball was on the ground for both sides. It was wet. It was definitely wet the first half, I thought it cleaned up a little in the second.

Q: Were DJ Uiagalelei and Jack Velling on the same page for OSU’s final fourth down?

Smith: Yeah, Jack got on the backside of the play. We were looking at frontside progression, that was not there. DJ tried to move his feet a little bit, buy some time. I mean, again, that’s why I’m going back to “not just one play” … you know, (there’s) always a “could’ve been.”

Q: This was one of the program’s biggest games on paper. Did you have a moment to take that in?

Smith: I did think the atmosphere was awesome. These are the type of games we want to create – obviously, we want to come up on the other end of it. But we appreciate our crowd and the energy and we want to play big games in November but we came up two points short.

Q: The team struggled on third downs tonight. How do you clean that up?

Smith: Yeah, especially in the first half, I thought that was not the number we wanted. We gotta get into a better down distance, so 3rd and medium to short. We got in a couple of other ones that, especially with the elements in the first half, that was not gonna be in our favor.

Q: It looked like your defensive plan against Penix was to not rush for many blitzes and to play it straight and see what he could do. It seemed to be pretty effective?

Smith: We pressured him a few times on third down, that first and second down we are kind of doing what we do, counting on the crowd to help us. We got two false starts that way and those guys needed to tackle well – those (UW) guys made a few plays. But especially in the second half, it was a really good plan.

Q: Between the impact of the safety and Gould’s fumble, what was the magnitude of those two plays given the final score?

Smith: Again, there’s gonna be a few plays in a tight game we can point to. Obviously, we’re not trying to snap it over his head. I do think Josh Green did a good job by making it only two points, not seven and give some credit to the defense, I believe when we put the ball on the ground, we held them. And so that’s how we want to be responding. And there are multiple plays in this game that can result in two points.

Q: What was the strategy on the final offensive drive? Did you milk the clock a little too much?

Smith: Yeah, it’s too much when you don’t convert. There’s no question. But yeah, we would love the idea of finishing the game with that drive and the way we moved it, we started with bad field position and obviously want to just keep converting. A field goal wins the game, so it’s not like desperation. We had timeouts. We just didn’t get it converted on fourth down.

Q: You talked about this senior group. Some of these players you’ve been with since the entirety that you’ve been here with this program was watching this senior group move on to the last time at least a little bit more emotional from you, just considering how long you’ve been with them?

Smith: Oh, I definitely appreciate them. You’re just so locked in in this game and then you’re digesting … but it is special. It was special watching these guys run out to Reser before the games.

Q: It’s the final Pac-12 game here with the conference as we know it. How do you feel about all of that? Have you thought about it?

Smith: I really haven’t thought about it. I mean, 10 minutes from taking a loss with the guys and staff real quick, and so I’m sure I’ll get to a point of digesting all of that. I just haven’t put a lot of thought into it.

Q: If you could set the final score aside, would you say this is one of the better defensive performances you guys have had given who you were playing?

Smith: Well, given who we were playing, yeah. I’m not trying to downplay it, I do think the weather was a factor in this thing on both sides. We played good on defense, we tackled well, all of that and again, that is a potent offense — a potent passing offense, especially. Holding those guys to 22 points is huge.

– Nick Daschel reported from Corvallis, Ore.

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