Oregon State/Oregon Article

[LTown Cat]

Cool article. I find lots of similarities here to MSU/UM:

http://www.dailybarometer.com/column-or ... IgWeW9G-a-" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Column: Oregon State players, fans remain humble despite 6-0 start
By Alex Crawford


The last time the Beavers were 6-0, in 1907, the United States of America was a much different place.

College football had legalized the use of the forward pass only one year earlier, and the sport was scrutinized by President Teddy Roosevelt for the number of deaths that happened on the field throughout the season (11 players died that year).

Heroin, cocaine and marijuana were available for purchase at the corner drugstore and the Chicago Cubs won a World Series.

A lot has changed since then, including the success of the Oregon State football team. From 1971 to 1999, the Beavers endured 28 straight losing seasons. Now, in 2012, the Beavers are undefeated and ranked No. 7 in the BCS standings.

Despite this Oregon State football Cinderella story (I’m sure there’s an orange and black pumpkin carriage joke in there somewhere but I can’t figure it out) the team, and the fans, are staying humble.

When you think of a top-10 BCS team, names like Alabama, LSU and Oregon come to mind. At such schools the football team is put on a pedestal and players, especially the well-known ones, are worshipped like religious deities. The same cannot be said about OSU.

Offensive guard Josh Andrews echoed this sentiment.

“I don’t feel a god-like status or anything,” Andrews said. “I just feel like another student who goes here, working hard and playing football.”

To me, the greatest thing about Oregon State being a top-10 team is that neither the players nor the fans act like it. At all.

By the way they interact with the fans and their fellow students, the Beavers are lot more like a high school team than an NCAA Division-I program. Going out on the town after a Beaver victory, you’ll see the football players out amongst the throng of happy students. Members of the fifth-best rushing defense in the nation are celebrating the win with an overwhelmed freshman from Poling Hall.

“I like how people treat us regularly. We are just regular people playing football,” said junior cornerback Sean Martin, who had his first career interception against Utah on Saturday. “We don’t need the extra hype. We put on our hard hats every day and go to work.”

This low-key attitude and humility can be attributed to several things. First of all, the attitude of their head coach, Mike Riley.

Riley has always been about staying humble. He is one of the nicest and most genuine head coaches in the nation. In fact, his “aw shucks” attitude has occasionally drawn the ire of Beaver fans who want a more fiery and intense head coach. Riley’s humility has paid off in the Beavers’ attitude, both on and off the field.

“Every week Coach Riley comes in on Mondays and we have our team meeting and he always goes to Ryan Murphy and is like, ‘Ryan, what’s our record?’ And [Ryan] will be like ‘0-0’ and that’s our mindset for the week,” Martin explained. “We’re 0-0 and we’re trying to be 1-0, and every week we reverse it and every week we go right to the top and go 0-0.”

Another reason for Oregon State’s unpretentious demeanor has a lot to do with that rival school down in Eugene.

Since Chip Kelly took over as head coach of the Ducks three seasons ago, Oregon has gone 34-6. OSU only posted a 16-21 during that same time.

Oregon has raised the bar lately and the Beavers, because of their humble mindset, are going to keep grinding because they don’t want this fairy tale season — or this turnaround of an entire program — to end.

Without fail, the media and even Beaver fans find themselves comparing the two programs. However, the two programs should not be compared. Yes, they are rivals, but they are completely different programs.

Oregon is a flashy neon football fashion show and Oregon State is hard work and fundamentals. Oregon is LeBron James and Oregon State is Tim Duncan.

“We play sound football and we outwork teams,” said sophomore linebacker D.J. Alexander. “We aren’t too flashy, nothing like that. We just come up, show up, and outwork the opponent.”

It’s in the DNA of the football program itself — from the coaching staff all the way down to the type of plays ran on the field — that has kept the Beavers’ heads from getting too big early on in the season.

Left tackle Michael Philipp doesn’t think the Beavers will stop maintaining that mindset either, even as the wins continue to pile up and the successes of the team reach unheard-of heights.

“I think every time we watch the film of the games and practices, we see how much we need to grow as far as technique,” Philipp said. “That in itself will humble you up, because you know even though you’re winning, you see a lot of mistakes [that] you made and that’s really what you want to fix instead of [focusing] on the win.”

The Ducks can have their flash, they deserve it. They’ve been a highly-successful program recently. The Beavers will never have that glitz, that glitter or any kind of new-wave offense. They’ll grind it out and they won’t let the success get to their head. That’s Beaver football and that’s the Oregon State way.

As an OSU student, the humility of this Beaver team while setting new standards of excellence for the program and making this season a magical one is equally as important — maybe even more important — than any tangible number in the stat book.

I hope it doesn’t go away because, like I said before, it’s the demeanor of the players and the fans that are making this special season so awesome.

[jjohnston]

This is way cool...and eerily similar.

[kcatz]

I had a good friend from Oregon, she used to say "at least Bobcats and Grizzlies sound like a fight that might actually happen or at the least would be scary. Can you imagine a Duck fighting a Beaver?"