Oregon Ducks, Oregon State Beavers bring high stakes, murky future into 127th rivalry game

The Oregon - Oregon State football series started on a chilly November Saturday in 1894 at a field situated east of Community Hall in Corvallis.

The “Lemon-Yellows” had arrived by train from Eugene and were “warmly received” as they cruised into Oregon Agricultural College to play a new sport many were calling gridiron football, an ode to the design of the lines on the playing surface.

Oregon Agricultural College, whose mascot was a coyote named Jimmie, beat the Lemon Yellows handily, 16-0, in front of no spectators. Afterward, the teams meandered over to Alpha Hall, the women’s dormitory, where they shared a postgame meal.

Oh, how things have changed.

Oregon and Oregon State will play for the 127th time Friday before 54,000 at Autzen Stadium in Eugene, meeting in one of the most anticipated and important games of the storied rivalry’s history. The stakes have rarely been higher, the contentiousness between the schools has seldom been greater, and the future of the series has never been murkier.

Friday’s outcome will have implications on the Pac-12 Conference championship, the College Football Playoff , the Heisman Trophy and the national rankings. And it all comes during the final regular season weekend of Pac-12 football, amid the specter of conference realignment, as schools separated by roughly 45 miles go their separate ways.

“This means a ton,” OSU coach Jonathan Smith said. “Living it and being in this state for multiple years. Emotion. Pride. You win this game, you get to talk about it for a full year. So the intensity and the emotions that come with it, that’s the cool thing about college football.”

Added Oregon coach Dan Lanning : “This game’s our Super Bowl .”

For the sixth-ranked Ducks (10-1, 7-1 Pac-12), Oregon State is the final hurdle on their road to the Pac-12 title game and, perhaps, a trip to the College Football Playoff. If they win, they will earn a rematch against the fourth-ranked Washington Huskies next week in Las Vegas, and the winner will be in position to earn the Pac-12′s first playoff berth since 2016. Additionally, quarterback Bo Nix , who entered the week as the front-runner to win the Heisman Trophy , needs another strong performance to strengthen his candidacy for college football’s top honor.

On top of it all, Oregon also is seeking redemption against its rivals. The Ducks needed a win against Oregon State last season to play for the conference championship and carried a three-touchdown lead in the third quarter of the game. But in a memorable finish, the Beavers used a big Silas Bolden kickoff return, a botched punt, multiple fourth-down miscues and an unstoppable rushing attack to complete a stunning comeback, punking the Ducks 38-34.

The Ducks have not forgotten the meltdown — Lanning and his staff won’t let them. Video of the fourth-quarter collapse has been played on an endless loop all week in the locker room at the Hatfield-Dowlin Complex, broadcasting the gory details of how they squandered a 31-17 fourth-quarter lead.

“Obviously don’t want to let that happen again,” Nix said, adding that he had to “hurry up and get out of the locker room as fast as possible so I don’t have to watch it.”

For the 15th-ranked Beavers (8-3, 5-3), motivation on Friday has more to do about the future than the past.

Three months ago, Oregon helped deliver a death blow to the Pac-12 when, along with Washington, the school’s Board of Trustees voted to defect to the Big Ten. The move initiated a mass exodus, sending schools fleeing to the Big 12 and ACC and pushing a conference that had thrived for more than a century toward the edge of extinction. Only two schools — Oregon State and Washington State — were left without a home, and the “Pac-2′′ remain stranded in realignment limbo.

The fallout has sent Oregon and Oregon State representatives into courtrooms and the state capitol, extending the rivalry beyond the normal confines of the football field. It also has cast doubt about the future of the series.

Officials from both sides have publicly expressed a desire to keep the annual meeting alive, but this week’s game is the last one scheduled. Hours before Friday’s kickoff, it’s unclear when — or if — a series that has outlived two world wars, wild postgame riots and the abductions of mascots and homecoming queens will continue.

It would not be the first time the series has been paused. Games in 1900 and 1901 were canceled because of cost-cutting measures. A decade later, after Oregon won 12-0 in 1910, a riot erupted as Ducks fans were walking to the train station for a return trip to Eugene. As a result of the chaos — and the overall contempt between the schools’ students — the 1911 meeting was canceled and the 1912 and 1913 games were moved to a neutral site in Albany. World War II canceled two more matchups, in 1943 and 1944, because neither school fielded a team.

Beyond those outliers, however, the rivalry has endured over parts of three centuries .

It survived two global pandemics, including in 2020 , when the teams played at Reser Stadium without spectators. It was held one week after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. It was played after an Oregon State student kidnapped Oregon’s live mascot “Puddles” in 1946, and after a student from Oregon briefly abducted the Beavers’ homecoming queen, Ardis Henry, in 1960. It continued after a postgame brawl in 1972, which started after Oregon fans tried to take down the goal posts following a win at Parker Stadium, and outlasted the “Basement Bowl” in 1976 and the “Toilet Bowl” in 1983.

After more than a century of history, it’s hard to believe that conference realignment will deliver a death blow.

But here we are, 129 years after the Coyotes defeated the “Lemon-Yellows” on a chilly November in Corvallis.

Friday’s game will not be the first in series history featuring conference championship stakes, playoff hopes and a Heisman chase. It will not be the first time one of the schools is seeking redemption.

But it will be the first time such high stakes will unfold under the backdrop of conference realignment, with so much uncertainty surrounding the future of the series, and with one of the schools lingering in limbo.

“We know the implications, quote-unquote, but guys aren’t really thinking about that too much,” OSU wide receiver Anthony Gould said. “l’m sure that will kick in after the game, however the result goes. But guys aren’t really too focused on the last Pac-12 game or the last Civil War. We’re just trying to focus on going out there and playing ball.”

— Joe Freeman | | 503-294-5183 | | Subscribe to The Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.