Spring game notebook

By Cliff Kirkpatrick

Corvallis Gazette-Times

CORVALLIS - Injuries have thinned the Oregon State football team's roster to the point that Saturday's spring game turned into a scrimmage of offense vs. defense, and didn't even last two hours.

That didn't prevent another player from being hurt. Starting offensive tackle Timi Oshinowo went down halfway through with a right knee injury.

Oshinowo was in visible pain and needed help from the field. Coach Mike Riley didn't know the extent of the damage, and said an MRI will be done.

"I'm hoping Timi Oshinowo isn't hurt badly, but besides that I think we made it through pretty well today," Riley said. "He'll have to go through an MRI before we really know. We'll see. We've lost some guys this spring. I don't know if it's more than normal or normal. But any time it happens, it's bad."

Other players to suffer knee injuries include backup running back Ryan McCants, second-string middle linebacker Tony Wilson and reserve wide receiver Kaulin Krebs.

McCants was hurt April 24, Wilson went down Monday and Krebs was hurt the second week of the spring. All three are scheduled for knee surgery to repair damaged ligaments.

"We just found that out (about McCants)," Riley said. "We didn't think (it was bad) for a couple of days, until we got the results back. And then there's Tony Wilson and Kaulin Krebs, but hopefully not Timi. It will be backing up into the season for them to be ready."

Lalich plays

Virginia transfer quarterback Peter Lalich was involved in running plays for the first time during the spring. He only saw action in drills the first 14 practices.

Lalich ran against the third string and some second-stringers during the spring game, and completed 10 of 17 passes for 214 yards, two touchdowns and an interception.

Lalich has three years to play two seasons and could compete for the starting job with Ryan Katz for the 2010 season.

"We were just preparing him, working with him, and I thought I would give him some chances today because we were going to run some extra plays," Riley said. "He moved the team pretty well, so I let him do some more."

TV news

The Oct. 24 game at Southern California will kick off at 5 p.m. and be televised by ABC, ESPN or ESPN2. That gives the Beavers three games on television so far.

The Sept. 12 game at UNLV will be an 8 p.m. start on College Sports Television HD and the Dec. 3 Civil War will be 6 p.m. kickoff on ESPN.