Pac 10 Fans Home
Pac 10 Football
Pac 10 Basketball
Pac 10 Baseball
College Fansites
Pac 10 Apparel
Pac 10 Tickets

Oregon State vs Washington State Preview

The biggest key for the Oregon State Beavers this week in the college town of Pullman, Wash., might be to escape Martin Stadium without any injuries.

Yes, that's what life is like in the Pac-10 these days when you play Washington State: Go into the Palouse, quietly grab your 25-to-35-point win, and be healthy for the next game.

Washington State, not so long ago, actually had a top-flight football program on its hands. The Cougars won the 2002 Pac-10 championship - yes, they were the last collection of competitors to turn back USC before this season - and reached the 2003 Rose Bowl against Oklahoma. Then-coach Mike Price, the long-term custodian of the program, abruptly bolted for Alabama, but in the 2003 season, new coach Bill Doba kept the freight train rolling. In the 2003 Holiday Bowl against big, bad Texas, Wazzu licked the Longhorns and made a strong statement about its level of staying power in the college football community.

But somehow, Doba couldn't keep the recruits flowing into Pullman. After a so-so 2007 season in which the Cougars won only five games (a drop-off from previous seasons), the administration - realizing the dearth of top-shelf talent in the Palouse pipeline - gave Doba his walking papers. New coach Paul Wulff inherited a hollowed-out team that did well to go 2-10 in 2008.

> Browse the selection of Pac 10 apparel & merchandise online as well as Pac 10 tickets through Pac 10 Fans and partner sites.

Yes, that's right: The 2008 Washington State football team achieved much by winning twice last year. The talent level possessed by that crop of Cougars was quite minimal.

This year, things haven't gotten any better for Wazzu. Wulff's team is now 1-9 on the season, and only because Southern Methodist quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell gift-wrapped two pick-sixes in a September game the Cougars won, 30-27, in overtime. Oregon State has joined Stanford and Oregon at the top of the Pac-10, and the Beavers - let's be honest - shouldn't be remotely threatened as they play this particular road game. Four years ago, it would have been difficult to come into Martin Stadium and win; six or eight years ago, the idea of beating Wazzu on the road was largely (though not entirely) foreign to most Pac-10 teams.

This year? It's a piece of cake.

As long as OSU doesn't get banged up in advance of the Dec. 3 Civil War against the hated Oregon Ducks, this game will rate as a relative success: Just grab your lunch pail, post a 30-point win, and quietly shuffle out of Pullman. That's today's modus operandi when you pay a visit to the Washington State Cougars on the gridiron.

By Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Staff Writer