What Trent Bray said after Oregon State rolled past Purdue

Trent Bray covered a range of topics with reporters after his Oregon State Beavers football team cruised to a 38-21 victory against Purdue on Saturday night at Reser Stadium.

Bray talked about the play of his defense, his quarterback and a big-play wide receiver who suited up for his first game with the Beavers. He talked about Zakiah Saez’s wild pick-six. He also answered questions about moving past the rivalry loss to Oregon, about being aggressive on fourth down and about the success of the Oregon State running game against the Boilermakers.

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

Next game: Oregon State (3-1) vs. Colorado State (2-2)

• When: Saturday, Oct. 5
• Time: 3:30 p.m. PT
• Where: Reser Stadium, Corvallis
• TV channel: The CW (Channel 32 in Portland)
• Stream: Fubo (free trial) or DirecTV Stream (free trial). Streaming broadcasts for this game will be available on these streaming services locally in Oregon and Washington, but may not be available outside of the Pacific Northwest, depending on your location.
• Oregon State football 2024 season schedule, scores

Bray: Just thought it was a complete win. I think early on, the defense kept us in it. They had some big stops, turnovers in the red zone that kept us in it, and the offense got rolling. So very happy with the team effort. There’s things — definitely we can’t let them run the ball like that — but very happy with the effort, the way they responded and it was just a good game for us.

Q: Trent, what did you think you got from your defense today, especially those first two Purdue drives?

Bray: I think they did exactly what we asked. We tightened down our coverage. They challenged everything they did, and early on it showed up with results on the football field. So I was happy, especially early with how we played.

Q: When we talked to Isaiah Chisom earlier in the week, he talked about the linebackers wanting to get their swag back. Just kind of wanted to ask your perspective on that.

Bray: I’ll have to watch the film. But yeah, they were flying around. There’s going to be stuff that I’m going to highlight that happens every week. But yeah, they’re flying around and they’re young players that are getting better every week.

Q: Coach, Darrius (Clemons) didn’t play a ton, but just how would you assess what he brought tonight?

Bray: Yeah, he did what we like about him. He made some big plays, made some big catches. There’s a progression to him coming back, not just burning him out the first one. So I was happy with the production we got out of him tonight, especially for him being out so long.

Q: Is it sort of a ramp-up thing for him? Are you going to slowly work him into more stuff?

Bray: Oh, absolutely, as he continues to produce.

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Q: You talked about how much the defense kept you guys in early. How much do you feel like the offense fed off of the defense flying around like that?

Bray: Yeah, I think when the defense is playing like that, there’s definitely no panic out of the offense when drives don’t get points. I think that’s a big part of playing good defense, is you let the offense continue to operate and work the way we wanted to. And a big part of what we do is we wear people down, and the defense keeping us in allowed us to play that style of game.

Q: You got a lot of success tonight out of that option attack with Gevani (McCoy). Was there something you saw in the Purdue defense, or just the way Gevani’s been progressing? What led to such reliance on that tonight?

Bray: Yeah, there was definitely an attack on what they did schematically, but also, Gevani does a great job with it. He made some nice reads on that, some big plays. I thought he did a great job. He pitched it when he was supposed to pitch it. He took it up the field when he was supposed to. I thought he did a really nice job with that.

Q: Trent, we talked last week about wanting some more explosive plays in the offense today. It seemed like Darius kind of helped in that regard. It seemed like there was a bit more of the jet sweeps and had just bigger chunk plays offensively. Was that a priority this week?

Bray: Yeah, we’re always trying to look at how we can create explosives. We like the 11-play, eight-minute drives, especially at the end of the half. But we don’t want to have to live with that every single time we touch the ball, so we’re always looking at always the best way to attack defense, to try to create those.

Q: Off the field, what characteristics, what sort of mental, emotional things do you feel like the team really had to fix after such a tough loss to come out tonight to perform the way they did on both sides of the ball?

Bray: The thing that impressed me about them, even right after last week’s game, was no one hung their head when we were talking after the game. They’re very mature about handling our business. They were very good about taking criticism and using it constructively. And so I think that, from a mental standpoint, the ability for young people to do that is impressive, and they did a nice job with that. And I think that’s why the game looked like it did tonight.

Q: Seemed like Gevani back there, seems a lot more comfortable just and sort of building up his confidence. How do you feel like his progression is coming? Where do you feel like he is right now?

Bray: I said last week, I’ll say it again, I think he’s just continuing to get better every week. He’s taken a step forward every single week that we’ve played. So he just keeps doing that. But I like he’s at, I like what he’s doing.

Q: Through four weeks now. What do you feel like you’ve learned from this team?

Bray: Well, a big one, we’ve got a big-time running game. We are capable of playing shutdown defense. We should have closed it out tonight, wish we would have, but we’re capable of doing that against big-time talent. And then the resiliency of our players, their ability to not back down or blink when things go bad.

Q: Coach, a wild pick-six there. How would you describe that, the weirdness of the play, and then just starting off after last week defensively, what that did for you guys?

Bray: Yeah, I think it was an energizer for sure. I think early on, we don’t get the fourth and 1, we get the turnover. And then the pick six, I think that was just huge for their confidence and to light a fire under us.

Q: Purdue’s not expected to be great in the Big Ten, but nonetheless a Big Ten team, Big Ten size in the trenches in particular. How big was that to kind of bounce back this week against another team that wasn’t necessarily a step down in competition?

Bray: Yeah, I think anytime you play these type of teams, or out of conference, so to speak, you want to represent your conference and who you are. So it was just great, because, again, it was a good opponent that we played really well against. That’s the biggest thing.

Q: Your schedule breaks kind of uniquely this year, four, four and four with byes in between. Are you where you thought you would be kind of going into the bye week, and what’s going to be kind of some important things for you guys going into this bye?

Bray: Yeah, I think being 3-1 is good. Obviously you want to be 4-0, but we’re happy with where we’re at. And especially the progression. I feel that we’ve become a better football team over these four weeks. And so now we get a chance to get healthy a little bit, get rest and then go another four games. So I like where we’re at. There’s still more out there for us, but I’m happy with the progression.

Q: You were pretty aggressive on a couple of fourth-down calls tonight. What’s the thought process there and is that a decision you might continue to think of in the same way in the future?

Bray: Absolutely, the thought process is to go win. And so, we actually as a team, we watch a bunch of different scenarios Friday nights, and one of them was Kansas State-Arizona, fourth and 1 backed up in their own territory. They convert, they end up driving down and scoring a touchdown. So that’s seven points that wouldn’t be on the board. I feel great about, in those situations, our ability to get it. Are we going to be 100%? No, but I feel great about our guys’ chances to go get it. So we’re going to take a risk, but it’s an educated risk.

— Nick Daschel covers the Oregon State Beavers. Reach him at 360-607-4824 or @nickdaschel. Listen to the Beaver Banter podcast or subscribe to the Beavers Roundup newsletter.