Canzano: Like bumping into an old friend
Oregon State beats Washington State in the first of two games.
CORVALLIS — I bumped into Ed Ray outside the Valley Football Center a couple of hours before kickoff of Saturday’s “Pac-2” Conference championship game.
Oregon State beat Washington State, 10-7. It’s been several weeks since the Beavers lost a football game. So long that I wonder if they’ve forgotten how to do it.
Before the game, though, I saw the 81-year-old former OSU President walking toward the football stadium gates by himself. A nest of white hair sat on top of his head. He wore wire-rimmed eyeglasses, a pair of khaki pants, and a black pullover fleece vest like the ones worn by the school’s marching band. It even had the word “BAND” stitched in small white letters on the left side of his chest.
Ray saw me approaching and stopped to chat.
“Your identity doesn’t mean shit anymore in college athletics,” Ray told me. “Alabama has the same goddamn problem that Oregon State and Washington State have — how much goddamn money can you raise? It’s all external. If you can’t raise the money externally, you don’t matter.”
Ray has a doctorate in economics from Stanford. He taught the subject at Ohio State for 33 years. Then, he became a provost. Then, Ray landed in charge in Corvallis, where he played an unwitting role in the weakening of the Pac-12 by being one of former Commissioner Larry Scott’s biggest supporters.
During Scott’s tenure, OSU and WSU (and some others) outvoted the LA schools and negotiated equal revenue shares. When we write the book about the Pac-12’s collapse, that development deserves a chapter of its own.
Ray’s a straight shooter. We always got along, even when we didn’t. He didn’t mind being criticized. That came with the big desk. Ray understood that. He’s also a great quote. He also told me last year that he was angry that the Pac-12 presidents stabbed each other in the back and didn’t hold the thing together.
The world watched OSU beat WSU on Saturday on CBS. There were a lot of empty seats at Reser Stadium. The Beavers, now 2-7, were a field goal better. The Cougars, ironically, suffered a special-teams miscue.
There’s a rematch on Nov. 29 in Pullman, but after that, the two legacy schools will formally merge in the reconstituted Pac-12. Once there, these two “Little Engine That Could” football programs must commit to funding themselves like a couple of Pac-12 bullies.
“I think we’re gonna see more leveling within the FBS,” Ray told me on Saturday. “It’s all about being good right now and money. Who can do the external fundraising and matter on the field in this decade? Look at Oklahoma State. They used to matter. They don’t anymore. T. Boone Pickens dies, and there goes your money.”
It was poetic that I ran into Ray on Saturday. I’d just come from a lengthy 1-on-1 interview with Oregon State President Jayathi Murthy. Murthy and I talked about a wide array of topics, including the rebuild of the Pac-12, media rights, expansion, Commissioner Teresa Gould, the firing of her football coach, the potential impact of Nvidia on her campus, and more.
That exclusive interview will be posted on Sunday in this space and on my YouTube channel. I left the Murthy interview thinking about how much has changed in the last couple of years, and how far the two-team conference has come, and then here came Ray, one of the ghosts of Pac-12 past, meandering along.
It was like stopping off for gas on the way to the wedding chapel, rolling down the window to find your ex, gassing up her ride at the next pump. Murthy was calm and focused. She talked about the grit, confidence, and vision it took to rebuild and how many people told OSU and WSU, “just go away, already.” Then, here was Ray, offering a brass-knuckle evaluation that sounded like a sports-radio rant.
“You either have the money to matter or you don’t,” he told me.
He’s not wrong. It wasn’t lost on me that quarterback Maalik Murphy threw only three passes on Saturday. Oregon State is paying him $1.5 million. Gabbari Johnson got most of the snaps, instead.
Johnson’s compensation package: $50,000, according to a source.
On the other sideline, Zevi Eckhaus was the starting quarterback. He replaced a guy — John Mateer — who left WSU for Oklahoma after last season. I covered that saga closely. The members of the Cougar Collective scraped together all the funds they could, emptied the jars of change on their dressers, squeezed their wallents, and presented Mateer with their best offer.
“We had $1.2 million for John Mateer,” a well-connected WSU donor told me on Saturday.
Mateer’s compensation package from the Sooners: $3.4 million.
“We wished him well,” the donor said.
Boise State lost to Fresno State on Saturday. San Diego State won and is 7-1. That trio of programs aims to play at the top of the Pac-12. Colorado State, Utah State, and Texas State want to matter, too. Historically, WSU and OSU have positioned themselves on the low end of the conference spending curve.
That can’t happen in 2026 and beyond.
They’ve not only got to get comfortable raising more dollars for football, but they’ve got to invest it wisely. Johnson, who is essentially 2-0 this season, brought more spark than Murphy. Cool story. But that’s not how the top-tier programs do it. And it’s why OSU needs to not only spend on a head football coach, but also a general manager to construct the roster.
I won’t get sucked too deep into Saturday’s football game. Mostly because there was a feeling all around the stadium before kickoff that what we were about to watch was really just a prologue for the launch of 2026 and beyond.
The same goes for the rematch. That one will be the final regular-season game the Cougars and Beavers play while operating as a two-member conference. As OSU AD Scott Barnes told me months ago, “If I never have to build an independent football schedule for another 100 years, that would be fine by me.”
The Cougars (4-5) won’t be happy losing the way they did on Saturday. Eckhaus threw two interceptions, and WSU’s kicker went ‘wide right’ in the final minute.
OSU’s season is hardly a success, either. The head coach got fired and was replaced by an interim coach, Robb Akey. The transfer quarterback got benched. Things went haywire. But there was an uptick of optimism on both sides before kickoff.
Something new is about to happen.
WSU and OSU have big aspirations.
They both want to matter.
Ray’s comments were wise, weren’t they? OSU and WSU won’t spend like Big Ten or SEC members. They don’t have the media-rights dollars that the ACC and Big 12 programs get, either. But if they invest at the top of this new-world Pac-12, they might just have something.
“Come up with the money, these days,” Ray said, “and you can matter.”
This transition period has been rough on the Cougs and Beavers 🦫. The football world has changed, and OSU/WSU are playing catchup.
BTW, great win for the Beavers.
For the Beavers to be success in football, and athletics as a whole, they need new leadership atop the OSU Athletics department. Firing S. Scott Barnes is a crucial step for the university.