Oregon State aims to release 2024 football schedule by week’s end

Oregon State athletic director Scott Barnes said he’s “super confident” the school will release a 2024 football schedule before the NCAA football transfer portal window opens Dec. 4.

Barnes said for various reasons, he must keep many details under wraps about the schedule. He said the goal is a 12-game schedule that includes five games against Power 5 schools, six games against Group of 5 – likely Mountain West – and one FCS, which is Idaho State.

Oregon State and Washington State are in a rare situation of having to put together their schedule for 2024, and likely 2025, after the Pac-12 folded in August. OSU and WSU are the only remaining members in the conference beyond the 2023-24 school year.

What’s public is that Oregon State has games against Idaho State (Aug. 31), at Boise State (Sept. 7), Purdue (Sept. 21) and Washington State (date TBA). The rest is unclear, though Barnes dropped some bread crumbs.

Asked if the Mountain West represents the Group of 5 schools on the schedule, Barnes hesitated, then said, “that is certainly a plan. That’s one of the considerations. But until it’s done, I can’t say much. But we’re very close.”

As for the five Power 5 opponents, OSU has two in Purdue and Washington State. The other three? Certainly, Oregon is in play. Barnes said he’s been talking to what will be former Pac-12 schools for several weeks, like Utah and California. But other schools could be in play as well.

Barnes didn’t want to discuss specific schools because “if you don’t get it done, people are saying, I thought you were playing this team, I thought you were playing that team. I’ll just tell you that we’re very close on rounding out that schedule.

What is holding it up? Well, everything. This is a schedule no athletic director at Oregon State has ever had to assemble.

“It’s super complicated. You’ve got the whole Pac-12 piece and how you get approval with that. You’ve got the whole Mountain West piece. You’ve got to get through that. Then negotiating on terms. It’s just a matter of getting it to the finish line,” Barnes said.

When the schedule is finished, Barnes believes the College Football Playoff format that is likely to allow seven at-large berths will be favorable to Oregon State.

“What we’re trying to build is something representative of an at-large bid in the CFP,” Barnes said. “We’ll have in as good a position for a CFP berth as we ever have been.”

-Nick Daschel |