For Wazzu and Oregon State, rivalry week brought the sting of being left behind
EUGENE, Ore., and SEATTLE — Fans in purple who managed to get onto the turf in Husky Stadium sprinted toward midfield to celebrate a perfect season, and they went right on by a despondent Jake Dickert. Washington State ’s coach was crushed. He took his crimson cap off and held it in his left hand and stared out at the section of Cougars fans in the southeast corner of the stadium.
Then he gathered himself, sent the incoming tears that were arriving back where they came from, scratched the back of his head, put his cap back on and waited to hug and thank as many of his players as he could. When he was later asked to describe the visceral emotions coursing through him, he let out an explanation that he used to describe the 24-21 last-second loss to No. 4 Washington in Seattle.
“We didn’t get what we want,” Dickert said. “Sometimes in life, you don’t get what you want.”
Such a simple statement hits especially hard for those who’ve been left behind in this latest storm of college football realignment. The Cougars lost more than a chance to be bowl-eligible when Washington’s 42-yard field goal soared through the center of the uprights. Their century-old adversary opted to find a new home, one without regionality or history. Saturday’s Apple Cup, the 115th meeting between the programs, was the last one as conference foes in the Pac-12.
This is the final college football season of the Pac-12 as currently constituted. Dickert has been outspoken on the state of the sport since the Pac-12 shattered in early August. After the loss, he said it’s a shame that history suddenly has been “washed out.”
“Will it ever be the same? We’ll see,” he said. “But I know it means something to everybody. Everybody.”
In a 24-hour span Friday and Saturday, the Pacific Northwest saw two of its most historic college rivalries enter this new, awkward phase, one that’s not so much a permanent goodbye but rather a “See you later.” The Apple Cup has been extended through 2028 , but the annual tug-of-war a few hours south has a murkier outlook at the moment.
Prior to the riveting final in-conference Apple Cup in Seattle, Oregon and Oregon State met at Autzen Stadium. Hours after it was over, Oregon State lost its coach, alum Jonathan Smith, to the Big Ten’s Michigan State, another gutting reminder of the Beavers’ stark drop in status. Even before he left, fellow football alums said they wouldn’t blame him for looking elsewhere and leaving a place so beloved to him. The shroud of uncertainty put Smith in a bind so untimely that it forced a coach so many believed could be a lifer to move on.
Washington and Oregon, which meet Friday in Las Vegas in a high-stakes Pac-12 title game, joined USC and UCLA as programs bolting for the Big Ten in 2024, while Colorado , Utah, Arizona and Arizona State head to the Big 12. Stanford and Cal, the last two Pac-12 schools to find a current Power 5 home, are bound for the ACC. Washington State and Oregon State have molded an alliance that includes a lawsuit against the schools that opted to leave the Pac-12 to gain control of the league’s governance and assets .
As the last two standing, the Pac-2 programs are attempting to chart a new path forward and are determined to keep the conference afloat somehow. They are scrambling to fill out their schedules and account for uncertain future revenue streams, all while college football moves on without them.
“Our future was never for certain,” a teary-eyed Oregon State wide receiver Anthony Gould said, “and that’s something we’ve battled through these last couple months.”
Two hours before kickoff Friday evening at Autzen Stadium, a woman in a giant Beavers costume stopped to take selfies with smiling Ducks fans.
Ducks and Beavers commiserated about the brisk late November wind that so rudely whipped through their canopies. Ducks and Beavers won and lost at beer pong. Ducks and Beavers found harmony at the sight of a common enemy when a supremely daring or supremely drunk Washington Huskies fan walked by in purple, forcing these two clans to burst out into a song that starts with a four-letter word and ends in “... the Huskies!”
Up here in the land of timber, amid alternating whiffs of firewood burning and weed, these two fan bases came together to overeat and partake in libations that raise the body temperature. Oregon and Oregon State first rammed heads on a football field on Oct. 1, 1894, and since then, there somehow have been 10 ties, a game abandoned in 1911 due to a riot the year before and a beautifully apt game known as “The Toilet Bowl” in 1983, in which neither the Ducks nor Beavers managed to grace the scoreboard with a single point.
In the shade of towering pine trees in the parking lots north of the stadium Friday, a banner draped on the driver’s side of a Dodge Ram 2500 stated: “Proud to be friends and rivals. Thanks for the memories.”
Janice McCaffrey lives in Happy Valley, about 20 minutes southwest of Portland. She sported Oregon yellow, but she had the banner specially made.
The truck belongs to her son-in-law, Adam Peterson of Damascus, who wore his orange. He went to OSU and married into this flock of lifelong Ducks. The state of Oregon has two professional sports teams but is to many a state of college athletics. Oregon versus Oregon State is the top sports billing here, and there really is no reason to battle for second place. Friday was the 127th clash. His wife, Janice’s daughter, Angela, spoke as the steam rose from the goblet keeping her hands warm.
“This is just about home and family,” she said.
Before being whisked away to the magnificent display of food underneath the family’s tent, McCaffrey said the Beavers belong there, the same as the Ducks.
Many Oregon fans agree. Even the Eugene cab driver who had just spilled a gas station chili dog on his shirt said there is a sense of shame around town that Oregon State is no longer, in essence, part of the same party.
Nothing could’ve crystallized what the Pac-2 is up against more than seeing Smith leave his alma mater 12 hours after a 31-7 loss Friday. Oregon State now works to fill its vacancy, with an eye on the Dec. 4 opening of the transfer portal. The Athletic first reported Friday that Michigan State had been in advanced discussions with Smith. While Dickert tried not to cry Saturday, Smith tried not to lie Friday. Smith, a former Beavers quarterback, chose not to stay for the difficult journey that lies ahead.
The FBS allows a two-year grace period for conferences to get back to eight teams minimum. Washington State and Oregon State have made it known they want to keep the Pac-12 alive, no matter who might be eventual full-time partners. While the Cougars and Beavers currently don’t have a media rights deal negotiated, nor schedules for 2024 finalized, The Athletic reported in mid-November that exploratory talks have been held with the Mountain West Conference about a temporary alliance.
To former Wazzu quarterback Ryan Leaf, this splintering of the Pac-12 and college football as a whole was “inevitable.” Leaf said he believes there is a strong path forward for his alma mater and Oregon State as college football expands to a 12-team College Football Playoff next year.
“I’d do my best to build this into a new Pac-12 brand with a bunch of Mountain West squads, and Oregon State and Washington State could rule that for the next six years and be the representative in the 12-team Playoff and watch Oregon, Washington, USC and UCLA battle in the Big Ten every year and miss out on it,” Leaf said.
Drew Bledsoe’s dad, Mac, was an offensive lineman at Washington in the mid-1960s, and while his grandfather went to Wazzu, his grandparents became fervent Huskies fans because of their son’s college football career. In 1982, the Cougars finished 3-7-1. One of those three wins came from upsetting No. 5 Washington 24-20 in Pullman, keeping the Huskies from going to the Rose Bowl. Bledsoe still remembers his grandparents had been saving for a trip to Pasadena.
“Instead, they bought a stereo for the house, which was always bittersweet for them because they had a really nice, new stereo for the house, but it was always a reminder that the Cougs knocked the Huskies out of the Rose Bowl,” Bledsoe said. “We enjoyed listening to good music at their house, but it always made them a little bit sad I think whenever they had to turn the stereo on.”
Bledsoe, who went on to star at Wazzu and was the No. 1 pick in the 1993 NFL Draft, said he worries about Wazzu and Oregon State, which he calls “the perennial little brothers” in their respective longstanding rivalries. The Huskies own a 76-33-6 advantage over the Cougars in the Apple Cup, while the Ducks lead the Beavers 68-49-10.
“To see both of those schools left out in the wasteland trying to figure out who they’re going to play, it’s tough,” he said. “It’s just an untenable situation.”
Oregon State athletic director Scott Barnes believes a new-fangled Pac-12 is possible and would alleviate the projected 44 percent loss in athletic department revenue in the wake of the Pac-12 dissipating. But the gap, especially with the separating SEC and Big Ten, would still be sizable. According to a 2021 report from the Knight Commission, media rights deals make up 38 percent of revenue sources for Power 5 conferences, while they account for a meek 10 percent for Group of 5 programs.
“Look, our goal is to rebuild and keep the Pac-12 entity and all of its assets, from IP to whatever assets there are, to rebuild and/or join a Power 5,” Barnes said last week. “All of that remains to be seen. I think having an opportunity to compete at the best and highest level now is important as we think through things.”
Unlike the the Apple Cup, Oregon and Oregon State are sorting through how to keep their football rivalry going. Both programs have current nonconference slates tied up through the 2030s. Barnes confirmed it is OSU’s priority to find a way to have Oregon on the schedule each year. Ducks coach Dan Lanning said Friday night he would prefer to play OSU as often as possible: “If we’ve gotta put the ball in the parking lot, that’s fine with me.”
“There’s a will from both sides frankly to do that,” Barnes said. “What’s tricky about college football is we’re so locked in for so many years into the future that when you have to make single, double or even triple moves to make that happen, it takes some time.”
Oregon-based sports columnist John Canzano reported last week that Sept. 14, 2024, would be the ideal date for the next rivalry game . But Oregon currently has a home game scheduled with Boise State , which would necessitate the Ducks finding a way to open up that date.
Former Beavers running back Matt Sieverson entered rivalry lore when he stepped in for his first career start in 2007 and rushed for 142 yards on 27 carries and the Beavers beat the Ducks 38-31 in overtime. He is skeptical that Oregon will want to keep OSU on the schedule every year.
“Forgive me, I think they’re full of s— on that one,” he said. “I think that’s all lip service.”
“I’m sure their paths will cross at some point,” former Beavers defensive lineman Bill Swancutt added, “but as of right now, it’s not something that is going to happen on an annual basis.”
These rivalries had a set spot on the calendar, usually with something important on the line for at least one team. Now, rather than slurping oysters or hoovering shots on boats in Husky Harbor in down jackets in late November, Huskies and Cougars fans might be swimming in Lake Washington in a late-summer heatwave when they meet in September.
As the frigid temperatures dropped with the setting sun on Friday afternoon in Eugene, Janice McCaffrey explained why she made the banner and why she chose to hang it for all fellow Ducks and visiting Beavers to see.
“I wanted to focus on how it’s been great, and we’re all really sorry it’s ending with the Beavers,” she said. “They’re our friends.”
(Photo of Washington defensive lineman Tuli Letuligasenoa and Washington State running back Nakia Watson : Joe Nicholson / USA Today)
