Beaver Football History: The Good, the Bad, and Really Ugly

With the Bruins flying up to Corvallis to take on the Beavers, it is time to once again examine the history of our opponents. Unlike the Bruins, the Beavers have enjoyed a rather successful decade in the 21st century. They have reached seven bowl games in the last eight years (since 2001), with the one miss in 2005. What makes OSU football even more impressive is that they have won six of those games, with five of the wins coming against BCS competition. This goes to show what a great job Mike Riley has done in the northwest, even though it seems like every year they come in with less talent than half of the Pac-10 and yet seem to surprise everyone. Don't believe me? just ask U$C (to be fair, they still have yet to win at the LA Memorial).
Just like I did in the comprehensive review of Cal's football history, I will traverse the decades before this century to find out the core of the Oregon State football tradition because looking at the past 10 years is simply not enough. To spare too much embarrassment for any Oregon State fans who might be reading this, I will summarize the 1980s-1990s in one word: horrible. They had 14 seasons in 9/10 places in the conference, in a span of 20 years... ouch. They do have a 5th place finish in those two decades, but that came in 1999. The 1970's were slightly better than their successive years, but still nothing to be too excited about. The 1950's and 1960's were pretty successful (relatively speaking) with two appearances in the Rose Bowl, the last one coming in 1965 in a Rose Bowl blow-out to Michigan State. Honestly, I would keep digging further, but there is nothing too pretty about OSU's football history so it is time to stop.
Throughout the Beaver's history since they started playing football in 1893, they have made it to 15 bowl games, and have won 10 of them. They even won the Fiesta Bowl in 2001 and have a Rose Bowl victory to their record too from 1942. As the 2005 Daddy Yankee song goes, "Lo Que Paso Paso", what happened happened and it is time to move on. Beaver fans have lots of positive things to look forward to if the last five years is any indication. Also, it helps that your team wears Halloween colors (below) and plays at home on Halloween, right?