A win more important than balance.

Byline: BOB RODMAN The Register-Guard

CORVALLIS - Take what the defense gives you. The Oregon State football team's offense has been doing just that much of this season.

But all too infrequently have those defenses been giving the Beavers both the pass and the run at the same time.

Against UNLV, Oregon State rushed for just 65 yards but passed for 396 and razed the Rebels 47-17.

In losses to UCLA and Arizona State, the Beavers rushed for 93 and a season-low 9 yards, respectively, but passed for 260 and 224 yards.

In last weekend's 24-13 win over California, Oregon State rushed for a season-high 301 yards but equaled a season low with just 80 yards passing.

"It's OK," OSU coach Dennis Erickson said of the imbalance, "as long as you win."

Amid a 22-0 setback at USC last month, the Beavers could neither run (51 yards) nor pass (80).

"You like to be balanced," said Erickson, whose team ended a three-game Pac-10 Conference losing streak by beating the Bears and tries to make it two straight when Arizona arrives Saturday for a 1 p.m. Pac-10 game at Reser Stadium, "but we are not executing the passing game as I know we can and as we have earlier this year."

After the first four games of the season (all wins), OSU sophomore quarterback Derek Anderson was the talk of the quarterback league with his 1,201 yards passing and 15 touchdown tosses.

In the next four games, however, Anderson has managed just two scoring passes and has had a couple of 200-yard passing games bookended by two games with just 80 yards each.

"When you're running the football, it doesn't matter as much," said Erickson, fresh off Saturday's rushing performance against California that was engineered by sophomore tailback Steven Jackson's career-high and Reser Stadium-record 239 yards.

Three of his 35 carries were into the Cal end zone.

Jackson's show was the second-highest single-game rushing total in OSU history, trailing only Bill Enyart's 299 yards at Utah in 1968.

"But (against Cal) we didn't throw it and catch it," Erickson said. "And teams are not going to let Steven run like that all the time.

"Our plan for Cal was to get ahead, run the clock down with the rush and let our defense win the game, and that's what happened."

Anderson, hip deep in his first season as the Oregon State starting quarterback, is struggling. He's the first to admit it. But the horde of three-and-out drives that stalled the Beavers so much for the past month or so ended against Cal.

"It felt great to sustain a few drives for the first time in a long time," Anderson said.

It would feel better to get the passing game going, too. But Anderson, who was 8-of-24 passing, is not the only one attempting to clear that hurdle, Erickson said.

"We had some balls dropped that could've been big plays, and the guys who were catching balls early in the season are the ones dropping them now," Erickson said. "I thought Derek threw the ball fairly well. But fundamentally, he needs to improve ... and we need to give him some throws he likes to make."

Anderson has looked a shade less than comfortable and confident in recent games but that, Erickson said, is not all the quarterback's doing.

"The (defensive) rush has caused that," he said, allowing that injuries to two starting offensive left tackles lit that match.

Questions about OSU's pass deficiency struck an Erickson nerve after the Beavers secured the much-needed win Saturday.

"Everybody was on us about not being able to run the ball," he said, "and now we're not throwing it and everybody's on us about that."

How quickly people forget. Currently, Oregon State is averaging 149 yards rushing and 239 passing. Ten years ago, the Beavers averaged an impressive 296 yards rushing but a paltry 28 passing.

That was in 1993. Oregon State finished 4-7, the 23rd of what would be 28 straight losing seasons.

PLAY DEFENSE: Defense still is the name of OSU's game.

The Beavers are second-best in the Pac-10 in total defense (allowing 316 yards a game), best in scoring defense (limiting opponents to 17.5 points a game) and tops in pass efficiency defense (allowing just five touchdown passes in eight games).

In the win over Cal, the Beavers broke up 13 passes and senior cornerback Dennis Weathersby set an OSU single-game record for passes defended with five - four deflections and an interception.

Oregon State is tied for fourth nationally in interceptions with 15.

ERICKSON IN NOVEMBER: In his 17th year as a college head coach, Erickson has made November a winning month for his teams. He has a career record of 44-10-1 in the month, a winning percentage of .809. As OSU's coach, he is 7-2 (.778) in November.