CORVALLIS — The bye week arrives with perfect timing for the Oregon State football team, particularly the defense.

The Beavers are coming off a 42-24 loss to Stanford on Friday and are 2-2. For a team in many ways still in transition to new systems, it is a good place to take a break.

For the defense, it means rest, recuperation and time to prepare for the many spread offenses left on the schedule.

Injuries had left the Beavers a bit thin up front for the Stanford game, which made a tough matchup even rougher.

“We have some people with nicks. I think (the timing of the bye is) nice. I think it plays into the team’s strength,” OSU defensive end Lavonte Barnett said.

“(If) we’d have another game this week, people that are hurt would still be hurt and would continue to get banged up throughout the season until we had a bye week. I think it plays hugely in our favor this week.”

The Cardinal hit the Beavers with a couple of big touchdown plays.

They were able to grind away with a ground game led by Christian McCaffrey, who finished with 206 yards rushing.

Stanford finished with 325 yards on the ground, and quarterback Kevin Hogan passed for 163 yards and two touchdowns.

Defensive coordinator Kalani Sitake said the scheme works, but the Beavers need bigger bodies and more depth up front to hang with Stanford.

Some of the OSU players also tend to slip back into techniques used in previous seasons.

“I see growth. There’s some promising things,” Sitake said. “I just think overall we just need more individuals to buy into what we’re teaching. It’s different from what they’ve done in the past and what happens when things get tough, we’re trying to get them to get out of what they’ve learned for the last three years and when things get tough they kind of go back (and) resort to that.”

The Beavers do not expect to see another Stanford or Michigan this season.

After playing four teams that focused on pro-style and power football, they will get a good dose of spread offenses.

“I think it’s good transition now,” Sitake said. “We went against Weber State, San Jose and Michigan and Stanford and they’re all traditional. They do a lot of traditional things, they huddle. Now the pace is going to be a lot different and so we’ve got to be able to change that and transition to that spread defense and that’s what we’re trying to do this week.”

Sitake said the Beavers are more equipped to take on the spread teams, both in terms of personnel and because the defense faces an offense with those elements and a running quarterback in practice.

Arizona is up first. Then it’s pass-happy Washington State and Colorado before a trip to Utah.

That is all in October.

“Right now, we’ve got to get ready for the gauntlet of the Pac-12,” Sitake said, “where we’re going to see a bunch of quarterbacks that can throw the ball and run and then a lot of spread system that we’ve been working on and I think we’ve been kind of using that as our base to defend and we’ll see how we do against it.”