Oregon-Oregon State ‘just a different feel now’

One of Bob Dylan’s most popular songs kept asking us, “How does it feel?”

You can hear him singing it right now, can’t you? Don’t lie.

How does it feeeeeeeel?

To be without a proper rivalry game?

Like a complete unknown game, even though it was the 129^th edition of Oregon-Oregon State football.

The final score Saturday, Sept. 20, at Autzen Stadium: Ducks, 41; Beavers, 7.

I first saw these two programs play 50 years ago, Nov. 22, 1975, when the 2-8 Ducks beat the 1-9 Beavers 14-7 at Autzen. My dad took me to see the Ducks’ first home win in the series in 12 years. 

It meant something that day, despite the dismal records of both teams.

It was a Pac-8 Conference game, played on the same day the Huskies played the Cougars and the Golden Bears played Stanford.

It was the last game of the season — neither was going to a bowl game that year — and the last game for “The Great Pumpkin,” OSU’s legendary orange-jacketed and somewhat round-headed coach, Dee Andros.

Yes, a half-century of watching these two in-state rivals battle in November, in the last regular-season game of the year.

Until this season, I’d never watched the two programs play in September in Autzen. 

For the second straight year, the yellow-and-green (well, they were in gray, or maybe black Saturday – it was hard to tell from the press box) and the orange-and-black played a non-conference game before the calendar officially rolled to autumn.

A smattering of Oregon State fans could be seen in Sections 38 and 39, along with the OSU marching band. 

I ventured over there at halftime, pushing my way through the sea of Duck and Beaver humanity in the stadium’s south concourse that is concession-stand hell between halves at Autzen, to chat with some of them.

That’s where I found Aaron Winsor, of Mukilteo, Washington, high up in Section 39 on the stadium’s west side, dressed in an orange OSU polo shirt and black shorts.

“It’s unfortunate, very unfortunate,” he said, when I asked what he thought of the state of this rivalry, first played in 1894 at what was then Kincaid Field in Eugene.

“Does the game mean as much to the boys now, because you’re playing it in September and not in November when you’re trying to spoil somebody’s season or go (to a bowl), if you win?

“It’s just a different feel now — totally different,” Winsor said, who was sitting with his wife, Wendy Winsor.

As Aaron Winsor was saying these words, I didn’t realize his son, AJ Winsor, is the Beavers’ punter, who had the most impressive stats of any OSU player on the field: Eight punts for 427 yards, an average of 53.4 yards, with a long of 66. 

Of course, when you’re playing the fifth-ranked Ducks, you get lots of chances to punt.

Which brings us back to the state of this rivalry, and the disparity between the 4-0 Ducks and the 0-4 Beavers, between a team that wore Nike “Shoe Duck” uniforms to honor one of the biggest benefactors in the history of collegiate sports, Ducks booster Phil Knight, and a team scrambling to stay relevant.

“Yeah, well, you know, Oregon State’s trying,” Dave Bobb, 75, of Talent, halfway between Ashland and Medford, told me before the game as he tailgated with friends in the Autzen parking lot.

Bobb was wearing a collared shirt that was half Duck/half Beaver, made of orange-and-black “OS” squares on one side and green-and-yellow “O” squares on the other.

It was a fine accent to his 2-foot-long, Santa Claus-like beard.

“It’s just that we’re dominating,” Bobb, a Duck fan every day of the year – except when they play the Beavers and he roots for both teams – explained of this 2025 Oregon team. “We’re dominating everybody. It’s not just the friggin’ Beavs, man.”

The friggin’ Beavs actually put up a fight for most of Saturday’s first half, tying the game 7-7 on a 1-yard touchdown run by Anthony Hankerson with 1:50 to go in the first quarter. And they were only down 14-7 with less than a minute to go in the second quarter, before Oregon’s Jordon Davison scored on a 3-yard run to make it 21-7 at the half.

But it all just felt like, well, what is was: A non-conference football game in September; like Oregon was playing Portland State or Montana State or some other state.

But the Ducks themselves will tell you the game means as much now as it ever did, despite the 75-degree weather, despite no fog or freezing rain on Thanksgiving weekend.

“This game is more than just a game,” Oregon linebacker Teitum Tuioti said after it was over. “Like, it’s about respect, and it’s about owning the state, and we obviously want to do our best and we want to win.”

I asked Oregon coach Dan Lanning, who’s now 3-1 against the Beavers after losing to them 38-34, in Corvallis in 2022, what this game means to his program.

“I certainly means a ton to us,” he said. “I think everyone feels like this resonates a little bit more when it’s on that Thanksgiving weekend; it’s a little bit different when it’s not.

“But it’s still a game that means a ton (and) one we have a lot of pride in.”

It’s also a game that won’t be played in 2026, the first time the two programs won’t meet since 1944, when they didn’t play for two straight seasons because of World War II.

You can thank the Ducks joining the Big Ten in 2023 for that.

The oldest in-state rivalry in the nation looks like it’s set to resume in 2027, and you have to hope the fortunes of both programs aren’t even farther apart by then.

“You’re going to bring it back, you already said you’re going to, right?” Aaron Winsor said. “Try to put some more meaning into it, because I don’t know if the boys feel it right now,” he said. “They can say all day they feel it, but I don’t think they do.”