Oregon State AD: Pay game against Ohio State was not part of scheduling 'philosophy'
Don’t count on Oregon State playing more games against teams like Ohio State in the near future.
The Beavers were blown out 77-31 at Ohio State in Week 1. The game wasn’t competitive even if the Beavers broke 30 points. Though it was lucrative. Oregon State got over $1.5 million from the Buckeyes for traveling to Columbus.
That payout, however, is apparently not worth the high risk of a massive loss. Oregon State athletic director Scott Barnes told the Oregonian’s John Canzano that his school won’t be scheduling games against perennial football powers in the future.
“We won’t do it this way,” Barnes said. “This game was scheduled several years ago… it was a one-off, payday against a perennial top-five team. That’s not our philosophy. Our philosophy is that we’ll play the middle of the Big Ten, the middle of the Big 12, we’ll play a group of five team and a FCS team… building momentum means everything right now.”
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Oregon State is trying to rebound
The Beavers are in the first year of the Jonathan Smith era after the awkward departure of coach Gary Andersen in the middle of a 1-11 2017 season. Oregon State hasn’t gone to a bowl game since after the 2013 season; the penultimate season of Mike Riley’s tenure as the team’s head coach. Riley has already been hired and fired at Nebraska since that bowl appearance.
Not scheduling automatic losses makes sense from a player and team progress perspective and scheduling home-and-home series with teams makes a lot of sense when it comes to your season ticket holders. If you’re trying to scratch out six wins through a schedule that features nine conference games you want to maximize your three non-conference games. And you want your home fans to see decent opponents outside the Pac-12.
But Oregon State doesn’t have many gimme games coming up outside of the Pac-12.
The schedule isn’t much easier in the future
A glance at Oregon State’s future schedule doesn’t show another game against Ohio State or a team like Alabama or Clemson. But there are games against Oklahoma State (2019 and 2020), Boise State (2022 and 2023) and San Diego State and Texas Tech further down the line. Those first two opponents — barring a crazy collapse — should still be formidable when the games against the Beavers take place.
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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.
Follow @NickBromberg on Twitter
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