119 Comments

Hope I am wrong but I think many Oregon State fans are simply numb with very few really interested in watching the Beavers. I think I am the average fan, for Beavers sake, I hope I am not given I have very little interest in how the football team does this fall. But my disinterest has way more to do with the direction of college football in general than the Beavers specifically.

College football to me is now best described as a whoredom that is going to become worse before it becomes better. College football now personifies the worst of human nature …… greed, selfishness and lack of character and integrity. It is no longer the place to spend Saturday afternoons rooting for

A team that will be disemboweled at end of the season

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Exactly Jim. I am a Beaver believer. I hope for OSU colleges sake we become motivated internally by what we are and not externally by what we are not.

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This says it all, "...greed, selfishness and lack of character and integrity." Amateur college football used to be a great place to learn life lessons. Are these the (negative) ones anyone really wants to learn now? Since money has been driving the decisions, the values and intangibles that drew so many fans are disappearing. It's possible that the attendance and viewership (for football especially) will fall off. And thus the revenue, leading to unkept financial promises. I can see a karmic process where the top conferences begin to experience the unwanted results of unsustainable decisions lead by greed--There could be a falling apart again, and reassembling of the old, regional conferences, putting some guidelines/regulations around NIL and Transfer Portal--maybe some arrangement to share the NIL money amongst the team, not only for the benefit of one player. A limit on total NIL payment to a player and team. Only one transfer, and that only after a couple years at a school. Or...???

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Well said

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USAPTXO

I'm 84. In my opinion, college sports will have a reset within a few years.

Currently, it is being dismembered now. Between NIL and the transfer portal, it's unworkable and don't blame the players.

The University Presidents and League commissioners blew it chasing TV $. OSU vre Uof O, WSU vrs U0d W, Michigan vrs Ohio State, Auburn-Alabama, the Red River Rivalry, and more, captured everybody. Who cares about Oregon vrs Rutgers, Arizona vrs Florida? Regional rivalries are a critical ingredient to college sports...or were.

The 'student athlete' is history. My granddaughter was a preferred walk on in college, running track for 4 years. With tutors, great self-discipline and perseverance, she graduated in 4 years. She told me that won't happen in the future. The major universities will fly football teams on chartered planes, probably departing on Thursday, returning on Sunday so players will only miss two days classes a week. Track, swimming, volleyball, softball, baseball, basketball will probably fly commercial with mused connections in Denver, O'Hare, Midway, Newark , and LA. Forget graduating in 4 years or maybe graduating. But the athlete stills learns valuable life lessons like perseverance, over coming obstacles, money management, loyalty, team spirit...at age 21 at $400,000. a year. Right ! Pray he never has a career ending injury at 22 and has to begin learning those life lesson late.

The current program is unsustainable. In a few years (next major TV contracts) football should morph into four 12-15 regional conferences and the rest of the sports revert back to regional competition.

I won't live to see it but today's model is broken and unsustainable. I enjoyed college sports for longer than I deserved but those days are over for me. In the meantime, I'll stick with the 49ers, and a few others.

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Well played, as usual, John. And all the best with that knee, we are all rooting for you. Charlie

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I'm no marketing guy, but I am a Beaver. Seems to me a massive marketing campaign aimed at the entire country, calling the Beav's America's team and inviting fans to participate might make sense. The premise is that there is a national disgust with what has been happening in college football and fans throughout the country might be willing to rally around the one (actually two - -WSU) program(s) that represent the build not bought identity -- a protest vote -- a team everyone would like to see succeed in the ugly new world. My suspect, with no data, is that rightly done it could attract a lot of attention and financial support from the little guys Given our current situation, it is a risk worth taking, IMO.

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Another Miss. Don’t get me wrong I am a season ticket holder for OSU Football and support the University in a variety of ways. I just read your column about OSU’s spring football event. I was embarrassed as I missed it. I then went and check my emails to see if I had missed an announcement for the event or an email encouraging me to attend. While I had a number of emails from OSU athletics including Scott Barnes letter to supporters about the status of OSU Athletics and the Conference. I could not find anything related to the spring football game. Now it is possible that I missed an email but I would have expected not just one but multiple emails encouraging me, a season ticket holder, to attend. I could not find any such emails. That appears to be another missed opportunity

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There were numerous e-mails, social media posts, etc. Not sure how you missed them.

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EA Flash is spot on. It was hard to miss if you are involved with OSU Athletics. However it was very low key. I attended the event. It was merely a glorified practice. Most of the best/top players played minimally if at all. John's comments about the event are uncharacteristically off-base.

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If OSU can get a QB1 settled, this is a minimum 8 win team. Agree on the marketing content, the situation, well it sucks, but can you leverage it? Embrace the suck. I think it would play well to the 99% of households watching the CW. Everyone can relate to being kicked in the teeth and then persevering out of the mess. You can’t throw a penny in any direction in Portland without hitting a world class marketing agency, go get one. Heck, I will negotiate it for OSU, for free.

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Embrace the suck? Well, sure.

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Reply. Right. Your team sucks! What are you thinking?

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Oregon doeth not suck. Nor does OSU. I support both, except when playing each other.

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Thanks Kiwi! We appreciate any type of positivity at this point in time.

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OSU has had the heart and soul ripped out of their football, MBB and WBB programs. OSU's favorite son, Coach Jonathan Smith bolted with as many players and recruits as he could carry, others transferred out. That's a major body blow. The basketball programs faced mass exodus of their starting fives + bench. These type of haymakers would put a lot of schools down for good. Let the resilient Beavers weather the standing 8 counts in all 3 sports and watch OSU bounce back. You know they will.

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Thanks Orange! We will be better in football than last year. The D is going to be amazing and the O will not be any worse than last year. We will not have coach dimwit sending the kicker off-tackle from the 19 at an important point in the game or going away from the game plan at key moments like he did against the U of W in November.

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America has a new college football team to root for. It's located in Corvallis, Oregon and it is ready to capture your hearts. Orphaned after the Pac 12 imploded, it is headed on a journey to the unknown. Follow the Beavers as they try to find a new home, either in another conference, resurrect the Pac 12 or go it alone as an independent. Sell the journey and give people a rooting interest., like a documentary or reality show. America loves ❤️ an underdog, like Rocky. Anybody know Mike Rich's number?

Time to think outside the box. Maybe even partner with Wazoo. Strength in numbers.

BTW, get well soon 😊.

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The rebounders club is having a gathering on Thursday to honor our ‘23-24 wbb team. Won’t it be very awkward? Who is still on campus? Why do we honor those who don’t want to stay and play for us? I’m in a quandary.

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Kennedy and AJ will be there Bonnie!

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That brilliant column, courageous even, is not going to win you fans in Beaver Nation. As a diehard Duck heartsick at what happened to Pac 12 and 100 percent opposed to Big 10 move…the one thing we don’t hear from Beavers is reflection on what they should have done differently—as in building big stadium and branding themselves decades ago as Oregon did. Instead we hear “blame Nike” and “Uncle Phil U,” which are true but also a reality of college sports for a half century.

OSU is a great university with a rich and deserved sports heritage. I love the Beavs. Until their fans get real, stop blaming others for their fortunes and dig deep into their own illustrious and wealthy fan base, they will wander in the desert.

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So true! Like it or not, each of us are where we are, because of the previous decisions we’ve made. If you don’t like where you are, do something different. It won’t change where you are today (too late for that), but it will change where you go tomorrow.

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Accountability. Agree

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One serious question I have for John or anyone out there is: what, if any, effect does all this alumni giving for athletics have on donations to the general academic funds?

Essentially, when alums give $400,000 for running backs, do they have less to donate for academics?

It's become an arms race. Where does it stop? Where are our priorities? Is this who we should be as a people?

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That's why I don't contribute to NIL. Wasted money, no permanent impact on anything.

I'll buy tickets, contribute to program enhancement, and to new facilities. The new CF baseball facility won't up and leave.

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Research is a mixed bag. This link says athletic success increases academic giving.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2158244015611186

The study didn't say how long the additional academic giving might be sustained if athletic success is short-term.

On the question of NIL giving...there is conjecture that it reduces other general giving to athletics but it doesn't necessarily reduce academic giving.

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Geez. This is the new ecosystem for college .The football players are getting what they have always deserved .

Whoredom? Please. The NCAA and the fans have been using players for revenue and entertainment for years. That is whoredom

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^^^^THIS 1000%

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And we are still using them, just now they are exercising choice and getting odot paid

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I've got no problem with players earning a salary. But then they shouldn't be getting scholarships, they should have to pay for their own education, food and housing out of that money, as well as pay taxes. Right now they pay none of that and still get free education, books, training table, monthly stipend, etc., on top of their NIL money. Also, schools should be able to remove players from the team at the end of each year if the coaches don't think the player is performing up to their potential. As it is now, a player can leave whenever they want for any reason without penalty, but a school is legally bound to honor their scholarship for 5 years, no matter what. Nobody should have it both ways.

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Take care of that knee John. As for the future of the Pac 12, Pac 2, or whatever it becomes, some of us will continue to believe, the rest won't, and we will keep graduating great humans, whether or not they are athletes.

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John, you hit the nail on the head regarding marketing and letting the big business donors take over. Marketing and "thinking big" has always been a weakness at Oregon State, since I was a kid growing up in Philomath in the 70s. I'm not sure there is anything OSU COULD'VE done to prevent what has happened, what I do know is that over the last 50 years they haven't done ANYTHING that MIGHT HAVE prevented it. We'll never know now. It's hard for a leopard to change its spots, but if they don't at least try, and swing for the fences, this is a lost cause. You can't just sit back and "hope" things change, which is what the strategy seems to be right now. A home and home with Kansas State starting in 2030 does nothing. By 2030 these programs will be dead and buried unless some other bold thinking is implemented almost immediately. OSU appears to be using the same strategy it's been involved with over and over, both internally and with the old Pac 12. Say nothing, produce nothing, miss deadlines and keep telling us they'll have answers "soon". How has that ever worked out the past 5 years or so? They longer they wait, the more certain it should be to everyone that 1) they have no real answers or strategy, and 2) when we finally do get answers it will be underwhelming and a complete miss. So preventable yet so predictable.

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Actually it might be a good idea to study Kansas State a bit. They were the dregs of college football at one point. What did they do over the years to rise above that? OSU isn't close to the low point KSU was, but there may be some lessons there for avoidance.

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When K-State was at its worst, OSU was even lower. They actually beat us handily on the field. So what did they do? First of all, they hired a hall of fame coach, Bill Snyder. We hired Dennis Erickson. Looks like a push. The difference is Snyder committed to build and sustain a program. DE used OSU to get back to the NFL and left in 4 years. While at K-State Snyder built his program by targeting JC transfers and then scheduling a cream puff non conference schedule to ensure they would win all of their non conference games. Even when the media criticized and ridiculed the scheduling, Snyder knew it was better to be questioned for the legitimacy of a 9 win team, than to try and defend a 2 win team. Easier to recruit to. Last but not least, K-State capitalized on being in a P5 conference and geographically being in the middle of the heartland. 2 things that are either too late for OSU or beyond our control. Your suggestion seems to only emphasize how OSU screwed the pooch. You're talking about things OSU should have looked at a few decades ago. While Snyder was consistently winning 9 and 10 games a year OSU and the fan base was content with Mediocre Mike Riley losing a least 4 games a year, at best. OSU consistently told us this was the best we could do and to be thankful we were going to low level bowl games most years. We also heard everyone make excuses about all the challenges OSU had that no other school had to overcome, instead of embracing the challenges and attacking them with some outside the box thinking. The strategies you're talking about are at least 20 years too late. They needed to do that as soon as Dennis Erickson left, not settle for what was easy and comfortable. But that's not the OSU way and never will be, thus we're in the position we are now.

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MacVicar killed us.

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MacVicar was by far the worst, but I don't think people realize just how bad Ray was as well. Risser was really the only good one we've ever had in the modern era, post 1960, that actually got it, and backed it up with his actions. Unfortunately, he just wasn't here long enough.

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Excellent analysis.

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It's no longer just about buying the players (NIL); it's about buying the fans (marketing).

It's no longer about the game; it's about who has the richest sports-obsessed benefactor.

The playing field was lopsided before. Now it's impossible. And ridiculous.

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Agreed, this last years has been this Beavers fan nightmare. But, its also been an awaking. We need a complete transformation in Football and Basketball. I'd much rather see our sports program grow smaller rather than larger. I'd much rather see us bring joy back into the games than player NIL or portal drama. For me the 400K thing + the "Elite 8" eight girls basketball team collectively betray the fans who cheered them. Transitions are hard, Transformations are better.

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Well said. Somebody told me a long time ago to always remember and honor where you came from or began. It is what formed you have become today.

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Even if the Beavers aren’t in the predicament they are in… I found out about the 10-7 final of their spring game from your column, John. That’s a problem too… OSU’s lack of marketing. Even if I wasn’t a Duck, what would suggest I go to Corvallis? Rest and recovery, John.

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What team promotes the score of their spring game?

Answer: zero teams because they mean nothing

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Well, let’s see. To sell tickets for the season? To gain some momentum? Hmm 🤔

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Well, let's see, Todd. An effortless Google search shows you could have learned the score from Oregonlive, the Statesman Journal, the Corvallis Gazette Times, Cleveland.com, the Portland Tribune, OSUBeavers.com, KEZI.com, and KTVL.com among many other sites. Does OSU need way more aggressive marketing? Absolutely! But your narrative that you couldn't find the score anywhere else is quite humorous.

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SCBeav, my point exactly. If the game was well advertised, maybe the game would be better attended, and fans would care. Clearly, few did. I found out the score, like many others, with aloofness. Next.

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Scores of spring games are 100% meaningless, and not news worthy. Especially since different schools have different formats and timing of the scrimmages.

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J C, I can only hope and pray for you having to have a fourth knee surgery!! Is this a knee “replacement “ surgery ?

Hard to understand why four, let alone “two” that I had, replaced both.

Best to you

Joe

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