OSU Football History

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1 Football

Football

History

Played its first football game in 1893. All time record of 454 wins, 508 losses, and 50 ties. The Beavers have claimed five Pac-10 championships, two of with have been outright.

OSU joined the Pacific Coast Conference which was the forerunner to the Pac-10 when it was founded in 1916, but the Beavers played independent from 1959 to 1963.

Oregon State has been in a bowl game five of the last seven years and has won three of those and lost two. Their most notable bowl victory is the Fiesta Bowl victory over Notre Dame in 2000 41-9. They were also the Pac-10 Conference Co-Champions in 2000 posting an 11-1 record on the season. The stadium where the Beavers play is Reser Stadium which was named that in 1999. It was expanded to 43,300 seats and will eventually hold up to 55,000 fans after all three phases of the expansion is finished. The stadium will hold the name Reser until the year 2038 because of a total of 22.5 million dollars being pledged by Al Reser.

Every year Oregon State plays in a Civil War game against rival Oregon. The location of the game switches year to year between Eugene and Corvallis. This wasn't the case though back in 1910 because of the riots; because of the riots at the Oregon State Penitentiary the game was played in Albany. Overall Oregon leads the series 54 wins, 44 losses, and 10 ties.

Best Player: Terry Baker who won the Heisman Trophy and played on the 1962-63 Final Four basketball team in the same school year. At the time, he was the first Heisman winner from the West.

Best Coach: Tommy Prothro who was always looking for an edge. Not only was he a football coach but he a great chess and master-level bridge player also. He helped the Beavers to 63 wins, 7 losses, and 7 losses whiled coaching from 1955-1964.

Best Team: The 2000 Beavers led by walk-on Jonathan Smith and Ken Simonton who finished as the number two rusher in Pac-10 career rushing yards with 5,044. This team also included the NFL successful wide reciever Chad Johnson. That year OSU lost only one game 33-30 to Washington in early October. The Beavers finished the season with an 11-1 record and finished it with a bang by beating Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl as mentioned above.

Biggest Upset: The Beavers were a 37 point underdog when facing a 4 win and 2 loss Washington team in 1985 at their house on October 19th. A Seattle columnist wrote "play football like Barney Fife plays deputy." The included an amazing sequence. OSU cornerback Andre Todd blocked a Washington punt and Lavance Northington recoverd it in the end zone for a touchdown that tied the game. The extra point put the Beavers up 21-20 and that is how the game ended. This was one of only three victories the Beavers had all season.

Sources for history: ESPN. "College Football Encyclopedia" 2005.

Reser Stadium

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