What they're saying: Beaver banter

Our weekly look into the opponent’s view of Colorado features lengthy quotes from Oregon State head coach Gary Andersen on the Buffaloes progress, their quarterback and more.

Here’s what they’re saying:

From Oregon State head coach Gary Andersen’s weekly press conference (Monday 10/19).

On the Buffs as a whole:

“Colorado is a team that has played a bunch of teams very, very close and has a very physical nature amongst themselves on the offensive side of the ball. Defensively they’ve changed from and even front to more of an odd front, kind of the transition that we’re going through. It’s interesting to watch them, I need to sit back and continually watch more tape. Quarterback now has some experience in this league, young player, but he’s done some good things for them, wide receiver crew makes some good plays for them down the field. The biggest thing that jumps out is they’re right there in so many games, I know their record is not what they’d like it to be, I don’t know how they’ve been in the past, I’ve never played them before, but it’s a team that is playing very competitive football week in and week out.”

On Sefo Liufau:

“Obviously he’s athletic, he’s got some experience, he’s no longer tagged as a young quarterback, he understands his offense and he’s got some great playmakers around him. Experienced quarterbacks are something that are very valuable, he’s another good one that’s out there, we’ll have to make sure that we do all we can to confuse him, and if you can get that done with the quarterback week in and week out you’ll be successful.”

On the challenges presented by the Buffs:

“On the offensive side of the ball the tight ends are involved in the passing game, especially vertically down the field, I apologize for not knowing 81’s name right now [Sean Irwin], but he jumps out on tape as a vertical threat of a tight end, and he’s a good player. I know the one wideout [Shay Fields] got injured on the last play of the game, he was a very talented kid, but there’s three or four of those wideouts that are good. We’re going to have our hands full coverage wise, we’ll have to make sure we mix them up, handle the quarterback within the spread run-game. They’ll do that, then they’ll come in and get in two tight end personnel and try to knock you off the ball and they’ve had some success doing that against some Pac-12 teams. When they played against Arizona State and they spread it out they didn’t have much success really and then they came in and ran the ball in double-tight situations and had some success… Defensively, again a very solid crew, a lot of similarities between what we do and what they do as far as the odd front and sometimes to the even front with the quarters coverage that they play, some good kids back there. I have not spent as much time watching them on the defensive side of the ball as I have on the offensive side. The reports that I get back this early is that on special teams they are solid and we need to keep being aggressive.”

On the Buffs rebuild:

“I don’t know how they were in the past, I don’t know what type of personnel they had, I know I have great respect for their head coach and we had battles when he was at San Jose State. He’s a good coach, MacIntyre is a good coach, they’re all good coaches. They’ve made strides, they’ve gotten themselves better, I don’t think there’s any question.”