Last Sunday, as I read through all of my go to college football websites to recap Saturday’s action, I came across this point from The Athletic’s college football insider Stewart Mandel:
“Finally, if you’re about age 45 and older, you remember when Oregon State was a decades-long punching bag in the old Pac-8/10, before rising up in the late ’90s and becoming a solid program. Unfortunately, the left-behind Beavers have swung all the way back, and then some. Late Saturday, 2-8 Oregon State lost 21-17 at home to Conference USA’s Sam Houston, which had not won a game this season. Forget the famous 1983 Toilet Bowl, a 0-0 tie between 4-6 Oregon and 2-8 Oregon State. This has to be the lowest moment in program history.”
After reading this, I thought to myself, “Oh my goodness, it is as if Stewart is speaking directly to me.” Even Mr. FishDuck took a break from his gaming fun at Lavicheats’ precision Valorant ESP and aimbot package to register his amazement at what he calls, “Beavis.“
Yes, the 2025 Beavers have not been this inept in quite some time. Many, many thoughts popped into my head of some of the highlights (lowlights if you are an OSU fan) from my youth.
But, first, let us provide some perspective. The downturn in Beaver Nation started in the early ’70s and ran, as Mandel mentioned, into the late ’90s.
I chose the two-win season of 1972 as the year that kicked off the Beavers three decades of misery. 1972 was the beginning of a trend of one or two-win seasons that would continue for the next 25 years which were supplemented by the occasional “breakthrough” season of three or four wins.
Oregon has dominated OSU recently, such as Travis Dye cutting for a TD versus Oregon State in 2018. (Photo by Kevin Cline)
It seems unfathomable, but let us keep in mind that through 1971, the Beavers held a 36 to 31 all-time win advantage over the Ducks (Oregon is now 70-49-10 in the series). Oregon, Portland in particular, really was the Beaver state as OSU was generally accepted as being the more beloved school statewide.
In the years leading up to the Beavers early 70s demise, the Beavers were a solid and respected football program. Beginning in 1955, Oregon State was under the guidance of legendary coach Tommy Protho (1955-1964) which continued under his replacement Dee Andros who took over in 1965. In 1962, Terry Baker won the Heisman Trophy while Oregon State won the Liberty Bowl, and in 1964 OSU went to the Rose Bowl (under controversy).
The Beavs continued to have decent to good seasons through 1971.
Rock Bottom Joe
The worst stretch of the Beavers’ ineptitude was from 1980-84 under head coach Joe Avezzano. He hit the ground running with an 0-11 record in his first year, and won a grand total of six games over his five years at the helm.
In 1983, his fourth year, I recall the Register Guard running a photo of Avezzano being carried off the field by his players after beating a horrendous Stanford (1-10) team. Why the big celebration? Because in his FOURTH season, Joe won his first Pac-10 game.
That is right, this grand “accomplishment” occurred in Year 4!
The Ducks have owned the Beavers for over 50 years now. (Photo by Steven Chan)
For perspective, in 2000, Dennis Erickson’s second year as head coach, the Beavers won 11 games. Joe barely won half that number in five seasons. In fact, in a stretch from 1980-86 the Beavers won 11 games. So, it took the Beavers seven seasons to match the single season victory total Erickson had in that 2000 season.
Avezzano had a record of 6-47-2 (.127) as Oregon State’s head coach. But, hold on, there is a happy ending for Joe. He did go on to win three Super Bowl rings with the Dallas Cowboys in the ’90s as the special teams coach where he was named the NFL’s special teams coach of the year three times.
As a side note, in 1997 I was vacationing at a resort in Bend when a couple buddies and I struck up a conversation in the jacuzzi with a guy who played under Avezzano at Oregon State. He told some crazy stories of good ole’ Joe and none of them were football related. The guy had me laughing hysterically with me repeatedly exclaiming, “No way!” Let us just say that Joe lived an “interesting” lifestyle and was most certainly on Santa’s naughty list.
A Few More Thoughts on Beaver Futility
Three Wins
In 1985, under Avezzano’s first-year replacement Dave Kragthorpe, the Beavs accomplished something Avezzano never did: they won three games in a season. One of those wins was against the Huskies. To celebrate the monumental event, OSU printed t-shirts. Think about it; they won a regular season game, and it was so amazing, they made t-shirts about it.
That is how bad the Beavers were.
Riley, Riley Good?
In 1998, for the first time in 28 years, the Beavers won 5 games in one season. It was such an accomplishment, that the San Diego Chargers plucked Mike Riley away from the Beavs. I mean, crap, if you can win five games at Oregon State, then surely winning a Super Bowl in with the Chargers should be a walk in the park.
Also, the Chargers had to have been thinking, “If he can fix that Orange Express trainwreck, I bet can he can fix our Ryan Leaf trainwreck!”
It did not work out.
That is how bad the Beavers were.
Former Oregon State Beavers head coach Joe Avezzano was looking for his third win of the ’83 season against the Ducks. Instead, the season-ending Civil War game finished in a scoreless tie. (Screenshot from YouTube Video)
Toilet Bowl
Ironically, after the Ducks’ rainy game this past Saturday at Iowa, the unbelievability of the misery that was the 1983 Civil War (aka “Toilet Bowl”) that ended in a 0-0 tie, makes it somewhat believable. Last Saturday’s low scoring 18-16 game between two good football teams was played in horribly wet conditions. Now take two awful teams from 42 years ago and you can reasonably begin to believe that nobody scored. It makes it somewhat tangible.
As an adult, if I needed to nudge my dad into doing something he was not keen on doing, I would occasionally jokingly bring up that game. “Remember the 0-0 game you took me to as a little kid? And, how it scarred me for life?”
It was always a good chuckle.
After that game, as a fourth grader walking back to the car with my dad and big brother along MLK Blvd., a van decorated in Beaver propaganda slowly rolled by. The van was loaded with kids who were all chanting, “We’re number one! We’re number one! We’re number one!”
Yes, after finishing a 1-11 season that ended in a 0-0 tie against your hated in state rival in the worst football game of all-time, some Beaver fans felt like they were number one.
That is how bad the Beavers were.
And, to our delight, that is how bad the Beavers are… right now!
Darren Perkins
Spokane, WA
Top photo credit: Steven Chan
Natalie Liebhaber, the FishDuck.com Volunteer Editor for this article, works in financial technology in SLC, Utah.
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Darren Perkins is a sales professional and 1997 Oregon graduate. After finishing school, he escaped the rain and moved to sunny Southern California where he studied screenwriting for two years at UCLA. Darren grew up in Eugene and in 1980, at the tender age of five, he attended his first Oregon football game. His lasting memory from that experience was an enthusiastic Don Essig announcing to the crowd: “Reggie Ogburn, completes a pass to… Reggie Ogburn.” Captivated by such a thrilling play, Darren’s been hooked on Oregon football ever since. Currently living in Spokane, Darren enjoys flaunting his yellow and green superiority complex over friends and family in Cougar country.