Where I Come From: Your All-Time Favorite Oregon State Team

…I remember it, but it just doesn’t stand out in my memory like the 2006 campaign does.

(Which ties with the 2007 baseball team, I know you said football but these two teams have been my two favorite OSU teams of the 2000s.)

2006 was a great season. Rough start doesn’t even begin to explain the atmosphere in Corvallis that season and people were calling for Moore’s and Riley’s heads the way they started the season. It was getting close to being ugly, but the team turned it around and the end of the season saw some of the all time best OSU football games IMHO with the UO, Hawai’i, and Sun Bowl wins.

I know I’ve said this before but 2000 was completely awesome of course, but a bit surreal overall in it kind-of came out of nowhere and in hindsight DE never followed it up, but again in hindsight 2006 just really I thought ushered in the Mike Riley era and showed the grit, heart, and team play we’ve now come to expect from Riley coached teams.

For pretty much the same reasons. The season just exemplified the atttitude of Beaver Football, and Beavers sports in general. The attitude of never giving up and showing resiliency in the toughest of times. It’s something that I think kind of seperates us from other Pac-10 schools, especially Oregon.

I mean, here are the Ducks with the constant cash flow, the four and five star players at every position, and the waterfalls in the Locker Room. And then there is little Oregon State down the road who is deep in debt and relies on two and three star players. But yet, year after year, the little Beavers are competing for the Rose Bowl and constantly coming back from slow starts to the season.

I think the 2006 Team represented that the most.

That 2001 team was so fun to watch because suddenly we had an AWESOME football team. But some good cases for 2006 are made… hmm…

I got 3:

2000 Fiesta Bowl team: maybe the most talented in the nation. a missed field goal away from potentially playing in the national championship that year. chad and tj were ridiculous on the outside.

2008: if only for making sanchise throw a hissy fit after the game

2009: canfield was way way rad last year. some of my favorite osu football games of all time (yes, even the civil war that got cancelled is one of my favorite games of all time)

I have two favorites, vastly different teams from different eras, and an honorable mention.

The 1967 team, the first "Giant Killers", get a lot of votes from old times, but the 1968 team, which was the third straight 7 win squad, came closer to bigger things, and didn’t have the mid-season problems the 1967 team had.

The second half of the ’67 season saw the road win over #2 Purdue, the road tie against then #2 UCLA, and, of course, the 3-0 Veterans’ Day upset of #1 USC, as well as a blowout of WSU, and a Civil War win over the Ducks.

But that tie, instead of a win, against the Bruins is what cost us a Rose Bowl trip. And right before the Purdue win, Oregon St. had lost 13-7 at Washington (a win against the Huskies would also have produced a Rose Bowl berth), and then got blown off the field 31-13 by BYU.

It’s also worth remembering that despite the giant killer win and tie, the crowd (more than the combined turnout for the only other home games that year, against BYU and WSU) mostly came to see the #1 ranked Trojans, who were making their first ever visit to Corvallis (all prior "visits" by USC were played in Portland, at Multnomah Stadium), and especially O.J. Simpson.

The 3-0 upset was the last thing anyone, OSU fans included, expected.

It was also the last OSU game I saw in person until the Riley years, or with my Dad.

The ’68 squad opened with a one point loss at Iowa, but bounced back for a 3 point win at Utah, and we were eagerly looking forward to the home opener against Washington. Dad died unexpectedly the day before, and so the win over the Huskies, that avenged the ’67 loss that cost so much, understandably, was completely off my radar.

So was the one point loss the following week at Kentucky.

But despite no longer being able to go to the games, Darrell Aune’s radio call of the four wins in the next four weeks was great tonic for me. Really hated not being able to be there for the win over UCLA, the only home game in the stretch (games in Portland were not deemed as real home games).

Then came the rematch with USC in the Coliseum. The Trojans were again ranked #1, and were known then even more than more recently for payback. Even at age 11, I felt going in that the Beavers had almost no chance to win.

The 17-13 USC win still qualified as a heroic effort by the Beavers, and a blowout of Oregon capped a pretty good season, back in the days of the lunacy of the Rose Bowl or no bowl rule. That team lost three games, and a Rose Bowl trip, by a total of 6 points, and was probably a better team than either of the two preceding teams.

Personally, with the loss of my dad, that team became an important emotional lift at the start of a rough stretch on a number of levels.

The ’69 team was respectable at 6-4, and no one had any idea it would be 30 years before we would see a winning team again.

By the time I got thru school, there was no point in going to an Oregon St. game.

Only once Mike Riley, and then Ken Simonton, came along was OSU football worth while again. But when he left for San Diego, everyone thought things were headed back into the dumps.
Fortunately, a huge stroke of good fortune came the Beavers’ way when Dennis Erickson came to town. Erickson was still being paid by the Seattle Seahawks, and his departure settlement probably required him to stay out of the NFL in order to collect from Seattle. So he could afford to be the OSU coach.

Right away, we were winning more than losing, and even the losses were close, and winning every game was a possibility. Still, the 2000 team was a shock. Especially after a couple of close calls to start the season.

But when the Trojans came to town, and took their second ever loss in Corvallis, by double digits, the anticipation of the trip to Seattle was easily the greatest ever.

As we know, the Huskies won that one 33-30, but the game was one of the best ever, and of course, the Beavers rolled to seven straight wins, ending with the blowout of Notre Dame, which at the time was still a respected national power.

The Fiesta Bowl was the first time that Oregon St. ever won consecutive games against ranked opponents, and that certainly made them special. And TJ and Chad were simply unbelievable.

But what really made that team my second, co-favorite team was their defense. The 2000 Beavers held five opponents to single digit points, held USC down enough to produce a double digit win, and won four other games decided by a single digit margin. And it was the overall speed of what was up to the time the fastest defense ever in the northwest that was what made that difference.

The honorable mention was the 2008 team, for a couple of reasons. First, it was the introduction of Jacquizz Rogers. But beyond that, it was the bounce back capability of the team.

The debacle at Penn St. would have derailed a lot of decent teams, especially on the heals of having given away the opener at Stanford, which would prove to cost a Rose Bowl. Anytime you lose to Stanford, it is a VERY expensive and disappointing loss.

But the Beavers bounced back with big wins over Hawaii and USC.

Blowing a winnable game at Utah, which allowed the Utes to run the table that year, only a week after the incredible upset of USC, was the kind of loss that had led some not that bad teams to disintegrate over the years as well. The 2008 OSU team responded with six straight wins.

The loss of first ‘Quizz, and then James Rogers, which led to the Civil War loss, and the worst defensive performance ever against the Ducks, would also have taken the wind out of most teams.

But while the 3-0 Sun Bowl win was widely panned nationally as the most boring bowl ever, the third rally of the year by the short-handed Beavers took the year from good to special for me.

Most of the country didn’t realize how far Justin Kahut had come, but Beaver nation understood how important it was to be able to say "Yeah Kahut!"

And knowing the difficult circumstances Jeremy Francis was in, playing his last ever game, with a mom with a heart problem, and still making a difference for the Beavers who would have been essentially out of backs without him, can only be called courageous.

So while not a great year, 2008 was an unforgettable year that could easily have been one to forget.

Firmly entrenched as a Bronco fan prior to moving to Oregon, I never had much of a dog in the Civil War fight, but I always leaned toward the Beavers. Moving back to Idaho and by chance marrying a Beaver alum, Oregon State became team 1b to BSU’s 1a.

My wife was born and bred a Beaver and that was not an easy thing growing up in Eugene. Until 1999 she had not seen a winning season in football in her lifetime.

After attending a few games home & road in ’98 including the epic 44-41 Civil War (and skipping the BSU vs Idaho game) I was hooked. We made several trips out to see the Beavers in ’99 including the all-important 6th W against Cal. Seeing the giant “6” flash on the scoreboard erased 27 years of losing and set the stage for the amazing run in 2000.

The 1999 season was special because a lot of the blue-collar mentality from Riley was still left over, before the swagger of Erickson began to set in for 2000.