Jamarcus Shephard on Houston Week: "We're Here to Fight"

The new Oregon State head coach needs his team to stay focused on playing their best football.

Oregon State head coach JaMarcus Shephard leads drills during fall camp at Reser Stadium on Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2025, in Corvallis, Oregon. | USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

JaMarcus Shephard will coach his first game on an Oregon State sideline Saturday when the Beavers face the No. 23 Houston Cougars in Texas.

Shephard spoke with the media earlier this week, covering a plethora of areas relating to the team's progression over camp and their opening matchup. Shephard started out with a lengthy opening statement where he discussed some basics and then finished out with a message on team bonding and culture-building.

"We have to stay focused on what our goals are, which are how we generate and eliminate explosive plays," Shephard said. "We're really gonna allow our tight ends to be extremely involved in that, but certainly have the ability to do that with our RB room as well as in the receiving core. We'll continue to build our foundation on defensive scheme, and communication that comes from the linebacker room will be paramount throughout this game. Last but not least, we gotta display versatility in all three phases of the game."

After a long offseason, Shephard expects his team to begin the campaign with intensity as part of that focus.

"Our guys just got to play with some heart. We gotta play till the last whistle, and I'll tell you what, I feel like our team will do that. We got to understand our why, why we're doing this, because that's what's gonna continuously motivate us throughout the game. And again we just have to lean into our stories, we've shared a lot of our stories with one-another, and those stories are important because...that's the reason why we''re here, that's the reason why this university is where it's at right now. So we gotta stay laser-focused on continuing to build this culture here and ensuring that this team has a great foundation."

After two tough seasons under Trent Bray, national expectations for the Beavers are understandably low. They enter Saturday as three-touchdown underdogs against Willie Fritz's Cougars.

"It's funny across college football everybody, it seems to me...is bringin' a new team in every year. So sometimes I don't understand how someone could rate someone this early," Shephard said. "Preseason polls and things of that nature, I don't quite understand how those even exist right now. They don't know how these teams are gonna gel, they're not even sure if every player on the roster is even gonna be available to each team. I think those predicting what our team will be in the first week of Houston have no idea what our team really is, so I don't really pay attention to that. I'm focused on making sure that our team knows what winning football looks like."

Hopefully leading the way in demonstrating that brand of winning football will be quarterback and Mercer transfer Braden Atkinson, who was named the team's starting signal caller to end Oregon State's fall camp.

"It seems funny, because Braden seems to be pretty consistent in how he's approached the competition for the QB position, and then now being the actual quarterback. He's a football junky, he just loves the game, he's up in the office right now on an off day. He hasn't changed who he is at all, and that's what you want out of your quarterback. It's funny that some of the pressure has kinda been taken off of the other two, and they've performed really well this week as well. And so honestly our quarterback room is trending in the right direction right now all across the board, so that we're gonna be prepared no matter what happens."

The Beavers are 55-158-4 all-time against opponents ranked in the AP Top 25. Their last win over a ranked foe came against No. 18 Utah back in 2023. Despite recent history, Shephard wants his team to understand that backing down isn't an option.

"I just want the message to be that we're here to fight, I know that there has been some issues with that in recent past. They are gonna fight for this university, we got a lot of young men moving back to Oregon, talk about Dylan Layne and Eric Olsen, these are Oregon guys who want to represent this university in a way that's second to none. So they are gonna fight for each other, they know the man next to them...So they've got reasons to fight, and this opening game against Houston, I tell them that it's gonna be a heavyweight bout, it'll be 12 rounds."

Oregon State and Houston face off Saturday at 9 a.m. PT on ESPN.