Aside from Washington or the occasional Top 5 opponent, there has been no greater joy for Oregon Football or its fans than beating Oregon State the past 25 years.
In the late 90s/early 2000s, the Civil War (most of us still call it that anyway) began to pick up national attention, and though there’s been some rather mismatched contests (2004, 2005, 2011 & 2012), there has also been some classic thrillers (2007, 2009, 2013, 2020).
Former Beavs head coach Jonathan Smith had pulled a Mike Riley in recent years, turning the smaller program full of less heralded recruits into a Top 25 program while reigniting the rivalry with Oregon by scoring upsets over them twice in Corvallis.
But with Smith’s departure and Oregon’s move to the Big Ten, it seemed like what fans had grown used to would quickly change.
Change it did.
The most recent matchup in 2024 felt…weird. Being in mid-September and no longer having any effect on conference standings, the Ducks blew out the Beavers 49-14 in a clash of two teams headed in completely different directions.
The 2025 CW will be in Eugene September 20th. There’s a little hot water brewing from Oregon electing a blackout game, which is actually one of the Beavers’ primary team colors, and some OSU fans encouraging their party to wear orange so that Autzen looks like an Oregon State crowd.
But it’s not really coming to a boil.
There’s really just very little doubt the Beavs can make this a contest. And again, conference standings aren’t on the line and the game is so early in the season it doesn’t have that same “strong finish” aspect it used to.
Photo by Tom Hauck/Getty Images
As long as Dan Lanning is at the helm of Oregon Football, it looks as…
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Publish date : 2025-07-15 23:00:00
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