State of Passion

Sporting News, The, Nov 20, 2000 by Ken Wheeler

Oregon and Oregon State are set to renew one of the game's most intense rivalries. But for a change, it means something to all of college football.

Folks absolutely adored Dee Andros, the rolypoly, orange-clad coach of Oregon State from 1965 to 1975. They called him "The Great Pumpkin," and he loved it. Hell, the guy drove an orange car. Even Oregon fans got a kick out of him--despite Andros' Beavers beating the Ducks nine of 11 times.

In 100-plus years of one of college football's most bitter rivalries. Andros came the closest to bringing both sides together. And yet part of him--a big part of him--still hated the Ducks.

"I'll tell you," Andros says, "your next-door neighbor may be your best friend, but if he's a Duck, for that week it's a different situation. All I know is when you lost that game, you were sick to your stomach, and when the ol' Pumpkin is sick to his stomach, he's sick all over.

"I think I'm the one who coined that saying, `It's for the right to live in the state.' It didn't always mean that if you lost that game they were going to run you out of town, but you sure felt like leaving."

It's Civil War week, and that says it all. The Green and Yellow vs. the Orange and Black. The Ducks vs. the Beavers. Sure enough, the feathers and the fur--along with the sometimes outrageous claims of chest-thumping boosters--will fly.

On Saturday in Corvallis, Oregon and Oregon State will continue something they started in 1894, back when Grover Cleveland was president. But unlike in most years past, the game will carry significant meaning beyond the state's borders and could determine the Pac-10's representative in the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day. Three teams--Oregon, Oregon State and Washington--still are in the race. The Ducks can settle it with a Civil War win. Oregon State needs both a win and a loss Saturday by Washington in its Apple Cup game at Washington State.

Should both Oregon State and Washington win this week, creating a three-way tie for the Pac-10 title, the Huskies, by virtue of an earlier win over the Beavers, would go to Pasadena.

The state always gets worked up over this game, but rarely--in fact, never--have the stakes been this high. Back in 1957, there was a similar situation, but only pride was on the line when the two entered the game atop the old Pacific Coast Conference standings. The Beavers won, 10-7, but Oregon went to the Rose Bowl because Oregon State had been there the year before, and at that time, the league had a no-repeat rule.

If that was the high point in the series, which Oregon leads 52-41-10, then the real clinker was the 1983 scoreless tie. It was the last 0-0 game in NCAA Division I history, and with the advent of overtime in 1996, it is destined forever to hold that distinction--and deservedly so, what with 11 fumbles, five interceptions and four missed field goals in a display of utter futility.

It doesn't figure to be that way this year, not with the weapons the Pac-10's two highest-scoring teams will bring to the baffle. The Beavers, who held Arizona without a touchdown in a dominating 33-9 win in Tucson last Saturday night, are led by a couple of guys who are small on paper but plenty big on the field: 5-7 tailback Ken Simonton, who leads the league in rushing, and 5-10 quarterback Jonathan Smith, who set school records for passing yardage and total offense in 1999. The Ducks, who ran their homefield winning streak to 20 last Saturday in a 25-17 win over California, are led by 6-4 junior quarterback Joey Harrington--the Pac-10's leader in total offense at 248.0 yards a game--plus explosive junior tailback Maurice Morris and a stable of fleet receivers.

Though the schools and the boosters bask in this newfound place in the sun, they also have cause for concern. Neither Oregon coach Mike Bellotti nor Oregon State coach Dennis Erickson has talked about leaving, but there is no question each has become an attractive prospect for a big-name college program or NFL team that wants to make a change.

But that's down the road. This is Civil War week--one done up in roses, not that they are needed to generate heat in this baffle between schools located 40 miles apart along the river that carved out Oregon's Willamette Valley.

"I think the Civil War is aptly named," says Bellotti, whose only loss in the series came in two overtimes two years ago. "It divides the state, divides households. With the significance of this game, it probably will receive the due it has deserved for a long time. It is always, regardless of records, a tremendously hard-fought, intense rivalry with very deep-felt feelings on both sides. We want to live in the state and be able to hold our heads up high."

Bellotti's predecessor at Oregon, Rich Brooks, who left to coach the St. Louis Rams and now is an assistant with the Atlanta Falcons, had a unique look--and record--in the Civil War. Brooks played at Oregon State, then was an assistant coach with the Beavers for six years before his 18-year stay as coach of the Ducks. In his nine years as a Beaver, he never lost to the Ducks. Then, as the coach at Oregon, he was 14-3-1 in Civil War games. He remembers how worked up folks would get.