Oregon State Beavers football: OSU looks for signature win

CORVALLIS ? Oregon State coach Mike Riley calls Saturday?s game with Wisconsin the biggest non-conference game ever in Corvallis, and it may be. We can definitely call the No. 13 Badgers the highest-ranked team to come here in 35 years.

Not since BYU came to town in 1977 ? when the Pac-12 was the Pac-8 ? have the Beavers played such a highly ranked, non-league team. So what took so long?

?There?s just not a lot of draw to come out here and play,?? Riley said.

The difficulty of drawing big-name schools to Corvallis is one reason why the Beavers have just one regular-season, non-conference win over a ranked team under Riley in nine tries. Only once since that 24-19 win over BYU (back when Jim McMahon was a freshman punter) has a ranked team outside the league come to Reser Stadium. That was Cincinnati in 2009.

So Saturday?s game is a most unusual one, and not only because an act of God made this a season opener. Suddenly, with Nicholls State off the schedule (although they still might play on Dec. 1), the Beavers have arguably the toughest non-conference schedule in the country, with Wisconsin and a game at BYU.

?I like them, I like the challenge of these games,?? Riley said. ?That?s probably ? looking back ? overly ambitious. But, that?s all right. I think if we win these games, we?ll be rolling, and we?ll find out a lot about our team one way or the other.

?We need to win one of them, we haven?t won one of them recently.??

The lone victory ? home or away ? came in 2006, when the Beavers won on the road against No. 24 Hawaii 35-32, and they have lost six since then. It was a long way to go for a game, but it was within OSU?s recruiting reach.

Corvallis, on the other hand, is not exactly located in a recruiting hotbed. Even Oregon hasn?t had such a highly ranked team from outside the conference in Eugene since Michigan?s visit in 2003.

?They don?t recruit out here,?? Riley said of teams outside the region. ?That?s a factor.??

Wisconsin coach Bret Bielema said road games are road games, no matter how long the flight, and pointing out that offensive lineman and Tacoma product Walker Williams is proof that the Badgers? national recruiting efforts reach the Northwest.

?You?ve got to accept them for what they are, wrap your arms around them, hug them up and make the best of them,?? Bielema said.

Only one other team currently in the Top 25 is on any of OSU?s future schedules. That will be in 2015, when the Beavers head to Michigan Stadium to play the Wolverines.

Next season?s non-conference schedule has home games with Eastern Washington and Hawaii, along with a road game at San Diego State. In 2014, SDSU and Portland State visit Corvallis, and the Beavers travel to Hawaii.

So, enjoy it while you can, OSU fans.

OSU athletic director Bob De Carolis says the Beavers subscribe to the strategy of easy/medium/hard non-conference games: Deal with the nine Pac-12 games, add a team you have a 90 percent chance of beating, then a more challenging one and then another that could go either way.

?But it depends on availability,?? said De Carolis, who got Minnesota to agree on a home-and-home, with the Gophers visiting in 2018.

Ten years before that 1977 win over BYU, the Beavers beat No. 2 Purdue and No. 1 USC and tied No. 2 UCLA in a four-week stretch. That earned them the nickname, ?Giant Killers.??

In 2008, OSU knocked the Trojans from the No. 1 ranking again, 27-21. Riley said a tough non-conference schedule may have helped set up that upset.

?We got killed by Penn State (45-14), but I think that set us on a path where we were a pretty good team that year,?? Riley said. ?Two weeks later, we beat SC, so maybe that helps.

?Early on, I thought those games were real important for our program. Those were mostly all national TV games. Everybody talked about that LSU game (a 22-21 overtime loss to the No. 3 Tigers in Baton Rouge) for quite a long time ? I think that was good for us. Now, we can be selective, we can do it once in a while.??

This series was a long time coming. De Carolis said the Wisconsin series actually was agreed upon before he arrived in 1998 and originally was scheduled for 2005 and 2006 but was pushed back due to the stadium expansion. So that would mean the contract was signed when the Beavers were still in their 28-year stretch of losing seasons.

In the world of college football scheduling, sometimes ? as Wisconsin and Oregon State know ? it takes a long time to get there.

OSU vs. ranked non-conference opponents (regular season):
2011 at No. 8 Wisconsin, 35-0 loss
2010 at No. 3 Boise State, 37-24 loss
2010 at No. 7 TCU*, 30-21 loss
2009 vs. No. 17 Cincinnati, 28-18 loss
2008 at No. 15 Utah, 31-28 loss
2008 at No. 22 Penn State, 45-14 loss
2006 at No. 24 Hawaii, 35-32 win
2005 at No. 11 Louisville, 63-27 loss
2004 at No. 3 LSU, 22-21, OT, loss
*in Dallas

- John Hunt

Source: http://www.oregonlive.com/beavers/index.ssf/2012/09/oregon_state_beavers_football_125.html

pope shenouda bolton muamba