Bill Oram: Stop the madness! Save the Oregon-Oregon State rivalry before that is gone forever, too

Published Aug. 03, 2023, 1:24 p.m.
By Bill Oram | The Oregonian/OregonLive
No! Dammit, no!
Why is this happening and why are we allowing it?
Where is the outrage? Who do we call? How do we stop it?
Oregon and Oregon State have been playing football head to head since 1894. It’s the best rivalry in the country and you can’t tell anybody within these borders anything different.
And this is how it ends? It can’t be!
The façade of Pac-12 solidarity has crumbled. Schools are looking for lifelines. The Big Ten smells an opportunity at a discount and the Ducks might just get bailed out, if that’s what you’d call annual trips to West Lafayette and East Lansing.
But what we’re about to lose, if this whole thing falls apart, is more than an athletic conference. The Beavers and Ducks are sibling rivals. Anchor points in a cultural jousting match.
Save me the lectures about there being more important things in the world than sports. Of course there are. This is about what is innate to us as Oregonians, something primal.
Being a Duck doesn’t mean as much without having the Beavers as a pesky counterweight.
We should not so easily sacrifice the tissue that holds us together as a state. That gives us a bond with our neighbors.
The existence of our two flagship state schools and what their athletic programs represent is part of the backbone of this state.
Sell that down the river for a few million? Sure, why not.
I reached out to Pat Kilkenny on Wednesday, desperate to understand what comes next, hopeful for a lifeline for the Pac-12.
“Change is good when it’s about the greater good,” Kilkenny lamented, “not big, dumb bags of money.”
He is frustrated by all of this, too.
The Pac-12 has pushed its members out the door. Commissioner George Kliavkoff spent a year working on securing a media rights deal that went heavy on streaming but light on up-front cash.
“Collaborative efforts normally yield positive results,” the Oregon donor and former AD said. “(There’s) not been much, if any, of that among the conference ‘leaders.’ Disappointing.”
There is nothing positive about Oregon and Oregon State going their separate ways. Zero. Of Oregon potentially getting promoted to the Big Ten and OSU maybe being relegated to the Mountain West.
The whole Beavers-Ducks thing only works if they are on a level playing field within the same conference.
The Big Ten presidents have authorized that conference’s commissioner to explore adding the Ducks and the University of Washington. And if that’s the news today, then I shudder what it will be tomorrow. Schools like Oregon State and Washington State have no obvious path back to a Power Five conference if the Pac-12 falls into the ocean.
Ducks fans should celebrate earning an invitation to the Big Ten, if it comes, but take no joy in leaving the Beavers behind.
Kilkenny again: “Oregon would be in the same soup with the Beavs and Cougs if it weren’t for (Phil Knight).”
Look, Ducks fans like to look down at the Beavs as a “little brother” and Beavers fans regard the Ducks as snobs.
One is a spaceship and the other is a John Deere.
But the rivalry should stop short of one school making a move that financially ruins the other.
“Civil” was the word we used, remember?
But Oregon would be doing exactly that by following the money to the Big Ten.
Oregon State’s athletic revenue is nearly double that of the Mountain West average. Jonathan Smith is paid nearly four times that of a typical MWC head coach. The Beavers would have no way to keep him into the future.
The gap between Oregon and Oregon State would become a vast gulf.
Nobody should want that. Not even the most anti-Beaver Ducks fan.
Sure, the Ducks and Beavers could schedule each other in nonconference games. But would the Ducks be up for a trip to Corvallis every other year? Doubt it.
There isn’t a long history of Big Ten schools playing road games in the Mountain West, even if they’re only separated by 46 miles of two-lane highway.
These are state universities, you know? They aren’t private corporations.
They are us.
I wish somebody would remember that before it’s too late.