Running to the Palouse

Washington State was Damien Martinez’s breakout in 2022. A year later, he leads the Beavers into their most important game in 14 years as a star.

The game is slowing down for Oregon State running back Damien Martinez. At least that’s the way Michael Odle sees it when, tucked away down in North Texas, he tunes in on Saturdays. 

The sophomore, Martinez, is one of the more recent collegiate revelations in Lewisville High School’s football program’s history, and Odle, the school’s head coach of seven years, watches the 6-foot, 235-pound back “religiously.”  

“Looking at him run this year,” said Odle, “it just seems like he’s even more competent. His vision is better. He understands the schemes better; how to set up his blocks better.”

Not lost on Odle is the symmetry between Martinez’s ascent through the North Texas prep football scene and the subsequent spotlight he’s garnered in year two up in the Pacific Northwest. Things have just come into focus a bit quicker in Corvallis for Martinez and an Oregon State team playing its most important football game Saturday since 2009’s War of the Roses.

Not to be outdone by the traveling carnival Colorado Buffaloes and their stop in Autzen this weekend, the No. 14 Beavers  and No. 21 Washington State Cougars will face off in Pullman on Saturday. It’s the Battle of The Pac-2. An unfortunate duel between two programs who feel jilted— rightfully so — left for dead and otherwise forgotten amid the constantly-shifting nature of modern collegiate sports. It’ll be hard to ignore the overarching implications surrounding the matchup, one the Beavers haven’t won on the Palouse in their last four tries. 

In fact, dating back to 2014, Oregon State was 0-8 anywhere against Washington State. That changed last season in a 24-10 home victory that served as Martinez’s pseudo-audition for the Beavers’ RB1 role.  

Six games into 2022, the freshman had yet to see more than 11 carries in a game. In the Week 7 matchup against the Cougars, however, he took 16 touches for 111 yards (the first 100-plus outing of his young career), helping Oregon State breathe new life into what had been a one-sided affair throughout much of the 2010s.  

“The guy’s got the capability to create some things,” head coach Jonathan Smith said after the game, “and had some huge runs… Guy’s a good player and he’s gonna get better, he’s only a freshman.”   

Martinez has totaled 100-plus yards in each game since (with the exception of the Beavers’ 30-3 bowl win over Florida, in which he left the game with an injury after just three carries). He’s become the team’s most dazzling playmaker — one that embodies its grind-you-down style.

His mid-season surge was impressive enough that it warranted attention nationally. As the offseason began, a host of opposing programs looked to vulture him. It was short lived.  

“I’m home and happy where I am ain’t no leaving,” Martinez later wrote on Twitter in all caps. 

So, as the Beavers look ahead to the start of Pac-12 play, they’ll be looking first and foremost towards their backfield. Remember, it was the play of this offensive line and running back group that allowed Oregon State to win 10 games a year ago and go scouring the transfer portal for quarterbacks with a “missing piece” pitch. 

While Oregon State ushered in a new, flashy quarterback this summer, the offensive front is still the locomotive, and Martinez is still its conductor — just like he was back in North Texas. 

For all intents and purposes, Martinez was Lewisville’s running back from the time he stepped on campus. Odle didn’t much bother trying him at other positions. It would have served only to increase what soon became a hefty workload.  

A three-year starter, Martinez was the Texas District 6-6A Offensive Newcomer of the Year as a sophomore, racking up 619 yards and nine touchdowns on 93 carries. He announced himself the following year in the season-opener with 250-plus yards and five touchdowns, eventually finishing the season with 31 touchdowns and 2,010 rushing yards on 232 carries and winning the district’s Co-Offensive Player of the Year award. 

“Junior year was definitely his show,” Odle said. “We had a lot of weapons on the outside and people just didn’t stack the box and they paid for it.”

Teams eventually learned their lesson and Martinez’s numbers (207 carries, 1,712 yards and 26 touchdowns) took a slight dip in his final season under Odle. But it’s the spirit of that junior year which bodes so well for Martinez and the Beavers moving forward.  

He won Pac-12 Offensive Freshman of the Year in 2022 during a season in which the quarterback position was more liability than asset. Stacking the box against the Beavers was a sensical, oft-utilized, tactic.  

It’s not quite as easy to do so here in 2023, though. And if that junior year down in Texas was any indication, Martinez in a balanced offense with room to run is a scary proposition for opposing defenses. Three games into this season, he’s up to 351 yards at 8.8 yards per carry. He’s already turned in runs of 28, 43 and 68 yards. 

Against the Cougars’ front seven, in a hostile environment, the Beavers will get to see just how much Martinez and this rushing attack can control a game. 

In Week 2 against a Wisconsin program known for producing powerful professional running backs and grinding opposing teams to a pulp between the hashes, the Cougars swarmed to the ball and held NFL-hopefuls Braelon Allen and Chez Mellusi to a combined 70 yards on 19 carries. 

“Any time we go into a game like this, when (people) say, ‘They’re gonna run all over you,’ we say, ‘Prove it,’ ” said Cougars’ defensive lineman Brennan Jackson postgame.

As luck would have it, Martinez and these Beavers are no strangers to an opposition selling out to stop what they do best. 

They just do it well enough that it hasn’t seemed to matter. 

— Shane Hoffmann, for The I-5 Corridor

Shane Hoffmann is a contributor to The I-5 Corridor. You can also find his work in The Oregonian and SBLive.com