Oregon State vs. USC article

[milohimself]

Kinda long, but a good read. Kind of gives me hope for Saturday's game... Especially if it moves Auburn to no. 1, and Vols can beat them in the SEC CG.

Once upon a time, OSU beat a No. 1 It happened in 1967 -- and against USC -- but three other visits to Corvallis by top-ranked teams were less memorable
Monday, November 01, 2004
PAUL BUKER

CORVALLIS -- OK, so it looks hopeless.

You figure Oregon State doesn't have a chance against No. 1-ranked USC Saturday.

Unless it rains.

A lot.

Unless the Trojans, who have won 17 consecutive games, turn the ball over a few times.

Maybe six or seven.

But there might be other forces at work here, according to Steve Preece, the former OSU quarterback who engineered what has been called the greatest upset in school history, a 3-0 victory over John McKay's top-ranked Trojans on Nov. 11, 1967.

No one was happier than Preece, now a color man on the Beaver Sports Network, when kickoff for Saturday's game was changed to 7 p.m. to accomodate TV.

Just as the famous Giant Killers used the weather to their advantage -- a sloppy field seemed to unnerve USC, although O.J. Simpson still gained 188 yards on 31 carries -- coach Mike Riley's Beavers, with their modest 4-4 record, might take solace from a monsoon. Or at the very least a massive thunderstorm.

All the better to slow down USC tailback Reggie Bush, who might be the scariest player to oppose the Beavers since Simpson.

"Those USC guys are going to be sitting in their hotel rooms all day, watching it rain," Preece said. "They're going to be thinking, 'This is horrible. Then they're going to walk onto the artificial turf (at Reser Stadium) and start complaining about how bad it is, how hard it is on their knees. . . . the temperature's going to be in the 50s. And they're just going to hate it, all day.

"I think we actually have a chance if that happens," Preece said.

Is he serious?

Well, sort of.

Preece did have an interesting phone conversation last week with former Giant Killers teammate Billy Main, who called up the memory of former OSU coach Dee Andros.

Andros, who died last year, was one of the most unforgettable characters in school history.

It was Andros, after the '67 Beavers had beaten then-No. 2-ranked Purdue and tied then-No. 2-ranked UCLA, who bellowed, "I'm tired of playing these No. 2 teams. Bring on No. 1!"

"This is coach Andros' first year up in heaven, watching over things," Main said.

"Can't you see this? Thirty-seven years (after the 3-0 win) he gets the No. 1 team in the country, in the rain, in Corvallis.

"If this happens," Main said, "Beavs win."

All of the above is unlikely to scare coach Pete Carroll's defending national champions, who beat Washington State 42-12 Saturday in Pullman, Wash., with frightening ease.

But the arrival of a No. 1-ranked team at Reser Stadium is an event to savor.

It doesn't happen very often -- just four times previously.

And the euphoria of what happened in 1967 gave way to reality in later years.

The No. 1-ranked USC team that went 11-0-1 and finished No. 2 in both polls in 1979 hammered the Beavers 42-5.

Steve Coury, now the football coach at Lake Oswego High School, was one of the captains of that team. OSU, coached by Craig Fertig, went 1-10 and lost the Civil War to Oregon 24-3.

USC's All-Americans in 1979 included tailback Charles White, offensive lineman Brad Budde, linebacker Dennis Johnson and quarterback Paul McDonald.

"I'll never forget going out for warmups," Coury said last week, "and thinking to myself how huge their offensive linemen were. Come to find out, it was their linebackers I was looking at. I knew it was going to be a long day."

White didn't play because of a sore shoulder, and USC had already lost star offensive lineman Anthony Munoz for the season to injury. But the Trojans, who led 35-3 at halftime, could have named the score.

"I just remember at the end, being very respectful of how good they were," said Coury, who was a wide receiver but didn't catch a pass in the game.

"Sometimes, you feel like if you catch a team just right, if things go your way, it's possible." Coury said. "I mean, you pick up the paper every day and read about upsets. You hope you catch them on a bad day. You hope it snows. You hope it's colder than hell, anything to take their mental edge away. But when it actually comes time to play, you really get a sense of how badly you are overmatched. That's the feeling I had when I left the field."

Two years later, the overwhelming talent gap between USC and an Oregon State program that would go 28 years without a winning season was in evidence again.

In 1981, when it was No. 1-ranked USC against a Joe Avezzano-coached team that went 1-10, the Trojans won 56-22. There was no national championship for the Trojans. They were a mediocre (for them) 9-3, losing to Penn State in the Fiesta Bowl.

But they were way out of the Beavers' league.

Ed Singler of Medford was the quarterback on that '81 OSU team.

Roger Levasa and Victor Simmons were captains.

USC had All-American tailback Marcus Allen, All-American lineman Roy Foster and All-American linebacker Chip Banks.

It was Avezzano's first game against a No. 1-ranked team as a head coach.

During the week, he held out hope, noting that the Trojans had come to Corvallis before and played bad games.

Maybe, just maybe, Avezzano said, the OSU defense could do something about Student Body Right.

Wrong.

In a little over two quarters, Allen had 233 yards rushing on 35 carries.

Beavers defensive end Craig Sowash spoke for the majority in the OSU locker room when he told the media, "If they played with a little more intensity they could play in the NFL."

In 1982, when No. 1-ranked Washington, coached by Don James, took on an Avezzano team that went 1-9-1, it was 34-17 for the Huskies in a game that was nationally televised on WTBS.

The Huskies finished the season 10-2, beating Maryland in the Aloha Bowl. They were No. 7 in the final polls, while the Beavers were unranked and unloved after a gut-wrenching 7-6 loss to the Ducks in the Civil War.

Given the final score, and the magnitude of its importance, the 1967 game is the one most remembered.

It tells the 2004 Beavers that anything is possible, even if they wake up this morning 17-point underdogs to a team that is destroying Pacific-10 Conference opponents.

Thirty-seven years ago, most of the nation thought Andros' Oregon State players were in way over their heads.

The Beavers disagreed.

"We had beaten Purdue, who had Leroy Keyes and Mike Phipps, and we should have beaten UCLA, who had Gary Beban (the '67 Heisman Trophy winner), so we knew we could play with USC," said Lee Jamison, an offensive tackle on the Giant Killers.

"Nobody was awestruck by O.J. Simpson," Jamison said. "We were actually looking forward to playing him."

The Beavers weren't cocky or arrogant. They simply knew they were good, even if an embarrassing 31-13 home loss to BYU earlier in the season had them wondering.

Preece, who lit into his teammates after the BYU loss, basically challenging their manhood, said there were too many leaders to count on the '67 squad.

"You would go in the huddle," said Preece, who ran the option as well as anybody in the country that year, "and you'd have four guys say, 'Run the ball over me. . . . and three guys in the backfield saying give me the bleeping ball or I'll clobber you. . . . It was a different time. It was all testosterone."

It wasn't a slashing run by Simpson, a bulldozer dive by fullback Bill "Earthquake" Enyart or a sweep by Main that lit up the scoreboard on Nov. 11, 1967, in front of 41,494 fans at what was then called Parker Stadium.

It was a 30-yard field goal in the second quarter by Mike Haggard.

"We moved the ball, and I don't think they got much past the 50 the entire second half," Jamison said. "The score should have been more like 17-0."

There was one major scare, when Simpson, running with a sprained arch, broke loose at his own 37-yard-line, cut outside and saw nothing but open field.

Ballgame.

But wait. Here comes OSU All-American defensive tackle Jess Lewis to bring Simpson down from behind at the Beavers' 32.

Lewis, now a member of OSU's maintenance staff, has always said he caught O.J. because Simpson downshifted to wait for his blockers.

"If he doesn't slow up," Lewis said, "no way I'd catch him."

The story that has been treasured for generations, retold by fans and players alike, has Andros -- the Great Pumpkin -- climbing onto a box in the Beavers' locker room underneath Gill Coliseum, asking his delirious players for silence.

There are tears in his eyes.

He holds up his right hand, with one finger extended, and shouts, "Who's No. 1 now?"

And in that moment, Corvallis, the little college town in Oregon, is the center of the college football universe.

On Saturday, given the right circumstances, Reser Stadium could be the scene of the upset of the year.

Maybe it will be Sabby Piscitelli, the Beavers' fastest defensive player, who chases down Bush from behind to save the day, just as Lewis' famous tackle in '67 brought down Simpson and finished the mighty Trojans.

Too incredible?

Piscitelli doesn't think so. In the moments after Saturday's win at Arizona, OSU's strong safety said dreams can come true.

"We know we've got to have one of the best weeks of practice we've ever had," Piscitelli said. "I know that's a great team. But we can play with them."

The quarterback of the Giant Killers agrees, with one addendum.

"Pray for rain," said Preece.