Oregon State’s Jonathan Smith Makes Eye-Popping Gesture to Cap Upset Win Over Utah

The Beavers coach made it abundantly clear what he wanted his team to do in the final moments of Friday night’s win.

Following a narrow loss last week, No. 19 Oregon State needed a win at home in Corvallis on Friday night against No. 10 Utah to keep its hope of a Pac-12 title pursuit alive.

The Beavers delivered exactly that, grinding down the Utes in a low-scoring battle to pick up a 21–7 victory. Oregon State never trailed, scoring the first three touchdowns of the contest before finally yielding a score late in the fourth quarter.

In the final moments of the win, Beavers coach Jonathan Smith made it abundantly clear that he wanted his team to control the game clock.

Perhaps, a bit too clear.

Broadcast cameras picked up Smith making a rather peculiar gesture from the sideline in the direction of his offense. What began as a winding motion with his finger quickly turned bizarre when Smith took both of his hands and began rubbing and squeezing his chest.

Thankfully, the Fox Sports broadcast had play-by-play man Tim Brando to walk fans through the gesticulation. 

“I think he may have been saying, ‘O.K. milk the clock. You gotta milk it.’ Yeah, that’s what that is,” Brando said.

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The Beavers (4–1) were able to run out the clock without allowing the Utes (4–1) to get another offensive possession. Nevertheless, Smith’s head-scratching gesture became the everlasting image from Oregon State’s victory.


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Zach Koons
ZACH KOONS

Zach Koons is a programming editor at Sports Illustrated who frequently writes about Formula One. He joined SI as a breaking/trending news writer in February 2022 before joining the programming team in 2023. Koons previously worked at The Spun and interned for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He currently hosts the "Bleav in Northwestern" podcast and received a bachelor's in journalism from Northwestern University.