Oregon State Football 2025 Offensive Preview

Cal is a 1.5-point underdog to Oregon State despite last year's 44-7 shellacking. Is Reser Stadium voodoo juju really that strong? (Hint: yes, yes it is.)

Cal opens the 2025 season against the reigning 2024 Pac-12 Pac-2 Champions, Oregon State (who beat Washington State last year, 41-38). They finished their first season under new head coach Trent Bray 5-7, which was perhaps a bit under expectations for Beavs fans. Coaching staff turnover quickly made this inspiring graphic irrelevant:

This graphic is from last year; Keith Heyward is now DB coach at Cal, Kyle DeVan left, and I have no idea where Gebbia is now.

More importantly, though, Oregon State revived the Pac-12, adding 5 Mountain West teams plus the Sun Belt’s Texas State in football. This is a real sticking point for me, because I loaded up on Pac-12 merch before the conference imploded, which I hoped would be some cool vintage football stuff in the future, like the Southwest Conference (SWC) is now. I will never forgive you for this, Beavs.

But since this article is supposed to be about football, let’s dive in.

Quarterback

Oregon State landed a surprisingly big fish through the transfer portal, Duke transfer Maalik Murphy. OSU’s previous quarterback Gevani McCoy transferred to Temple, while Ben Gulbranson was demoted to Stanford. Murphy has insinuated that he was pushed out at Duke, as Duke prioritized (perhaps through NIL) their new transfer quarterback instead (which I only mention, since we will see Duke later this season).

Luckily, Oregon State has this guy to help them turn things around:

Maalik Murphy was later disciplined for throwing the double bird on national TV. This was directed at his offensive coordinator, who he surely got along with.

For someone leaving Duke, he made sure his last throw there was a good one:

QB Maalik Murphy drops it in for the 39 yard game-winner to WR Jordan Moore

Maalik Murphy is a quarterback in the mold of Anthony Richardson: Murphy has that prototypical size and strength, and absolute cannon of an arm (although he doesn’t have Richardson’s dual-threat mobility). Like Richardson, Murphy loves to throw it deep, but lacks the field processing ability to dominate the short- to mid-range field game.

Murphy generally shows excellent placement and touch on the deep ball, particularly favoring back shoulder throws which can be very difficult to defend. Last year, Murphy had quite a few “drop in the bucket” deep balls, leading his receivers to the ball and hitting receivers in stride:

QB Maalik Murphy drops it in for the bucket for the 43 yard TD

Here’s another throw demonstrating his excellent placement:

QB Maalik Murphy great throw for the 45 yard completion to WR Jordan Moore

Murphy’s reliance on the deep ball resulted in a lot of boom-or-bust plays, but he was often successful with this type of throw early in games:

QB Maalik Murphy launches it deep to WR Eli Pancol for the 86 yard TD

This brings a much-needed element to the Oregon State offense, as they were unable to take the top off defenses last year, despite having receivers that could get open deep.

Murphy threw most accurately from a clean pocket, showing off some next-level throws:

QB Maalik Murphy has time and has great placement on the throw for the 45 yard TD to WR Jordan Moore

Given a clean pocket, Murphy could drop it right on the money:

QB Maalik Murphy excellent placement on the throw for the 25 yard TD in OT to WR Eli Pancol

Murphy particularly excelled at back shoulder throws, and putting the ball where only his receiver could get it. This is a common throw for Murphy:

QB Maalik Murphy hits the back shoulder throw to the opposite side of the field for WR Que'Sean Brown for the 20 yard TD

And again:

QB Maalik Murphy makes a nice back shoulder throw for 34 yards to WR Sahmir Hagans

I was also impressed with his ability to layer throws over defenders. Although he can be a bit raw, it’s easy to see that Murphy can have a very high ceiling:

QB Maalik Murphy layers this throw over the defender perfectly for the 71 yard TD

One thing to note is that Murphy is a pocket passer, and not particularly mobile. Here is one of his 2 rushing TDs last season:

QB Maalik Murphy on the RPO keeper for the 3 yard TD

(The other, against Wake Forest, was an RPO keeper where the entire defense didn’t believe he had the ball.)

On the other hand, Murphy has struggled when not throwing bombs. Here’s a quick spot throw, which Murphy rifles behind his receiver and it gets deflected upwards for an interception:

QB Maalik Murphy throws behind his receiver on the spot throw for an INT

Murphy has also struggled with pressure. He often gets “happy feet” when he feels it, and his failures to set his feet have resulted in errant throws:

QB Maalik Murphy throws off his back foot under pressure for the INT

Murphy has also struggled at times with his post-snap reads:

QB Maalik Murphy throws an INT after VT changes the coverage post-snap

Here Murphy doesn’t even see the safety and realizes his mistake as the ball left his hands, suggesting he pre-determined this throw pre-snap:

QB Maalik Murphy doesn't see the safety and stares down his receiver for an easy INT

Last year, Oregon State would often mix QB Gabarri Johnson into drives to have a bigger run threat behind center. Johnson is a dual-threat quarterback (almost 50/50 run/pass last season), and is a legitimate run threat:

This was my favorite run play of his last season:

Like Murphy, I don’t see him “Peyton Manning” his way down the field:

I expect we’ll see a a Cal defense that tries to pressure and confuse QB Maalik Murphy, but the secondary will have to stay disciplined, as Murphy will absolutely capitalize if he sees one of his receivers getting free downfield.

Running back

Oregon State was anchored by a strong run game last year, led by Anthony Hankerson. I’ve already previewed him a number of times (such as: OSU 2024 and Colorado 2022), and Oregon State has only played 4 games since they last time we saw them, so I can’t imagine all that much has changed here. To briefly summarize previous articles, Oregon State’s offense thrives on a physical, power-running style led by Hankerson; a tough, downhill runner who consistently grinds out extra yards. While not a breakaway speed threat, Hankerson shows good vision, makes sharp cuts, and has enough quickness to bounce runs outside for touchdowns. His true strength lies in running through contact—he ranked among the nation’s leaders in missed tackles forced and yards after contact last year, despite not having any long breakaway runs last season (at least, prior to the Cal game). Instead, Hankerson’s value comes from his relentless consistency: he lowers his pads, spins off defenders, and powers forward for steady 5- to 15-yard gains, making him particularly effective in short-yardage and goal-line situations.

Of course, after emphasizing his lack of big runs (his season-long was 28 yards, which held through 11 games of the season), until he finally did this in the final game of the season:

RB Anthony Hankerson finds a seam for the 83 yard TD

Although Boise State definitely misplayed that run, no one was able to catch him, so perhaps we might see some longer runs this year.

Of course, if that wasn’t enough Hankerson highlights for you, feel free to watch them again here:

Oregon State Football Offensive Preview

Behind Hankerson is sophomore Salahadin Allah, who is expected to grow into a bigger role this year after showing some flashes as a true freshman last year. He’s another power back that likes to run through contact. He showed good vision in limited action:

RB Salahadin Allah does a good job finding the crease for a 13 yard run

Oregon State also landed a transfer from Louisiana Tech in RB Marquis Crosby:

RB Marquis Crosby finds a lane for a 31 yard run

I have not watched any Louisiana Tech games, so I don’t have much of an opinion here, but he may also be in the mix on Saturday.

Receivers

Oregon State returns last year’s top receiver, Trent Walker, who caught 81 of the team’s 216 receptions last year—more than the next 3 receivers combined—so I expect who continue to be a big feature of the OSU passing attack. Walker is a solid route runner with a knack for finding the soft spots of zone coverage to get himself wide open, and he’s shown some nice YAC (yards after catch) ability. He’s got reliable hands, and he’s shown the ability to stretch the field to make a big play.

Here Walker does a good job adjusting to the throw to make the catch:

WR Trent Walker makes a nice adjustment to the ball for the 43 yard catch from QB Ben Gulbranson

Speaking of sure hands, check out this catch Walker made in traffic and managed to stay upright even after the hit:

WR Trent Walker makes the catch in traffic for a 31 yard catch from QB Ben Gulbranson

Apropos of nothing, I expect that QB Maalik Murphy’s new favorite receiver will be Darrius Clemons, because of their seemingly compatible play styles.

[Author’s note: I wrote this section in the offseason, but Clemons announced this week he will miss the entirety of the 2025 season with a ruptured Achilles. So I guess not all my predictions come true.]

Clemons was often busy getting open deep downfield last season with quarterbacks who preferred the short game. Clemons is a big, speedy receiver that loves to run the deep out route:

WR Darrius Clemons difficult to cover on the 21 yard deep out

Clemons has shown some nice contested catch ability:

WR Darrius Clemons makes the contested catch for the 2-pt conversion

And here is my favorite plays of his:

WR Darrius Clemons stiff arms one defender and makes two more miss for the 12 yard TD

At the slot is redshirt sophomore Taz Reddicks, and he showed see a lot more action this year in the starting role:

WR Taz Reddicks tracks down the throw from QB Ben Gulbranson for 24 yards

Conclusion

Oregon State has relied heavily on their rushing attack in recent seasons, but new quarterback Maalik Murphy gives them the ability to add a significant downfield passing threat to their game. Cal will need to pressure Murphy and keep him off-balance, take away the deep threat, and hopefully shut down the OSU run game as decisively as they did last year. I think that Wilcox’s defense will be prepared for Oregon State’s offense, but the real question mark is on the other side of the ball. I haven’t the faintest idea how Cal’s brand new offense will fare, but it seems that Vegas doesn’t have very high expectations for a team starting a true freshman quarterback, brand new running backs, and a lot of new faces in the receiver room. Additionally, Cal has had much better teams inexplicably lose at Oregon State’s stadium, so we definitely can’t discount the black magic factor here either. I’m just hoping we see enough to get me drinking the Kool-Aid again.

Go Bears.

You can find my full clips here.