Is Effort Enough?

Doesn’t matter who they play, doesn’t matter their record on a given Saturday. The least fans and supporters of OSU football should expect is 100% from the players and coaches.

I’ll agree that, for the most part, the effort was there yesterday in Corvallis. But there’s no ‘bonus points’ for it. That’s to be expected. You are right about the excuses. I remember the bad old days. I remember when there were serious arguments made that OSU (and even Oregon) had no place playing in the Pac10 – they could never compete, they were both ‘small market’ they would always be doormats. Both teams (fortunately) have proven beyond a doubt that such talk is BS. Oregon is the class of the league. OSU has seriously contended for the Pac10 title in recent years. OSU went to the Fiesta Bowl not too many years ago and blew the pants of Notre Dame. Reser can be a stadium where visiting teams go to get beat. The Beavers can be a team that, year in and year out, beats up on the dregs of the league on the road and wins at home. As far as I’m concerned, that should be where the expectations begin.

As for yesterday’s game, I can’t forget the closing seconds of the first half. The Beavers have a chance to score a TD, or at the very least, a field goal going into the locker room. There’s 20 seconds on the clock, 2 timeouts remain, and the braintrust on the sideline can’t decide if they should call a timeout and stop the clock or quickly line up and ground the ball to stop the clock. So they waste 12 seconds, then get a false start causing them to lose 5 yards and burn the timeout they should have used in the first place in order to prevent the mandatory 10 second run-off.
Of course we all know they ended up with a grand total of zero points on that possession. There were boos as the teams left the field.

And that brings me back to last week. Playing a Utah team that time and time again has shown it cannot throw the ball. What’s the obvious tact to take when playing Utah? Well, what’s worked for every other Pac12 team is to stack the box and stop the run and force Utah to throw. Yet the gameplan the coaching staff came up with allowed Utah to run up and down the field.

I wouldn’t have a problem with a 2-7 record if in all 9 games I thought the coaching staff had instituted reasonable game plans. If I thought these Beavs were playing to the best of their ability and the coaching staff were teaching and managing to the best of their ability and this team was getting shellacked most weekends, then so be it. Then I’d at least know there’s always next year and the losses are due to talent.

But what I’ve seen this season tells me next year ain’t going to be a whole hell of a lot better (excepting key changes being made after the Oregon game) …. and that shouldn’t be acceptable to anyone.

And… any team that has the ability to hang in there for 3 quarters against Stanford should have the ability to win at Utah. And win at home against UCLA. And probably beat Cal. And surely beat Sacramento State.

As a child on the North Side of Chicago, near Wrigley Field, I couldn’t help but become a Cubs fan. Now, these many years later, I know what it is like to root for a team your whole life and never taste victory. Oh, the team wins a game here and there, of course, and even occasional division titles, but fans like me have never experienced the joy of their beloved Cubbies bringing home a World Series championship. They last appeared in 1945. They lost. No MLB team has had a longer drought. Fans appreciate the team’s effort, but after so many years of frustration, it’s not enough. Just one season, we want to see a dugout full of talented players and wise coaches who finally reward fans for all those years of loyalty. Just one season with no excuses, no ifs, ands, or buts, no couldas, shouldas, or wouldas. Pat Casey gave Beaver baseball fans their reward by taking the team to the College World Series in 2005, 2006, and 2007, bringing home championships the latter two years.

My college football teams have also given me more frustration than joy. Take the University of Minnesota Golden Gopher and UCLA Bruins. Please, take them. Their last conference championships were 1967 and 1998, respectively, and it’s been a lot longer, 1960 and 1954, respectively, since they were national champs. Long suffering fans would like to see at least a conference title every decade or so.

And then we come to Oregon State Beaver football. Their last conference title was 2000, under coach Dennis Erickson. They appeared in a BCS bowl the following January (Fiesta, 41-9 win over Notre Dame) The last previous Pac title was 1964, under coach Tommy Prothro. They’ve never been national champs. Fans endured decades of mediocre football before Erickson. Under their current coach, Mike Riley, the Beavers have had some winning seasons, but they are 45-45 in conference play, with three games to go this season. Conference titles and BCS bowls have eluded the Beavers since that one magical year, a decade ago.

Is it too much to ask that my MLB and college football teams not embarrass themselves on the field, and that they compile a won-loss average higher than .500, and that they bring home a conference title at least once a decade? Fair weather fans are long gone, but I’m still rooting for my teams. Sometimes I feel that it’s not them who are the lost causes, but me.

it is required. If the team doesn’t even look interested that’s when it is hard to be a fan. The players yesterday played hard until they were worn out. That end of the first half atrocity makes it tough to watch though, and some of the punts instead of going for it on 4th down also made it hard to watch as well. The players did all they could, but the coaches held them back for this game.