Almost a decade later, I can still remember the feeling I had when I saw the first image of Mike Riley in a Nebraska polo. It was disorienting—something that had always seemed so familiar suddenly being so foreign. I had a friend who drove a 1970s VW Bus in college. It was creamsicle orange and had surf company stickers in the back window. As his time in Corvallis wound down, he decided to sell it. I never left the area, and neither did that VW bus.

To quote Ice Cube, “Today was a good day.” It’s always a great day to be a Beaver, but today was probably one of the better vibes days I can ever remember in Beaver Nation. There was almost zero to complain about, from coaching decisions to player execution to the score…heck I didn’t even see anyone complaining about the announcers for once.

As Beavers, we’ve become accustomed to disappointment. Growing up whenever I watched an OSU game with my grandfather, at some point he would invariably say something along the lines of “I wonder how we’ll flub it up this time.” No matter the sport, no matter the situation, we’re geared to expect the worst.

Loss affects everyone differently. When a loved one dies unexpectedly, everyone in the family reacts differently. Some will look for who to blame: God, the doctors, someone you can sue, etc. Some will make it about themselves, making a post on Instagram and talking about how Meemaw died just after they got to the hospital, “as if she was waiting just for me to finally say goodbye.” Some will just close themselves off from the world, preferring to be alone with their feelings.

The Pac-12….er….Pac-10…..er….Pac-9 has been through tough times before. Founded in 1915 as the Pacific Coast Conference, it actually died for a few years in the late 1950s after the University of Washington was found to be illegally paying players in 1956, then everyone turned on everyone else and ratted each other out for doing the same thing…..a great read on the history of the conference can be found here in a piece titled ‘Modern NCAA Conference Commissioner was Forged in Fiery Destruction of the Pacific Coast Conference.’

For years, I’ve been hearing about the Beaver Bias (shoutout The Payton Years!). Most of the time, I try to figure out if it’s really a thing, or if there’s some other reason and it’s mostly my fandom coming through.

Patience is not a word that has any value in the college sports landscape these days. Message boards and Twitter consistently light up with messages calling for the firing of coaches after every single loss. A quality win on Thursday can be completely forgotten about by Saturday if the team has a poor shooting night.

Not since the Alamo in 2012 has there been this kind of excitement for a bowl. A bowl game, for that matter. That year, the Beavs started 6-0 with wins over ranked Wisconsin and UCLA along the way. The Beavs were ranked in the top 20 for three straight months and played Texas in the Alamo Bowl. That combination (nine-win regular season, quality bowl that OSU had never been to, good destination, prestigious opponent) fueled fan fervor and made it a “must attend” event for many Beaver fans.

Have we caught our breath yet, Beaver Nation? Saturday is a day not many of us who were there (and probably those who watched on TV) will forget any time soon. That game had just about everything you could have asked for (aside from a downfield pass by the Beavs). In terms of improbability of victory, I doubt you can beat this.

Sunday night, the Oregon State men’s soccer team fell 2-0 to the University of Portland at home. When the potential for the in-state matchup was announced by the tournament selection committee, I worried about it.

Making a prediction regarding a sporting event is tough. A team can fall apart for reasons that have little to do with the sport itself, and then you end up on @OldTakesExposed or some other Twitter feed looking like a dummy. I once wrote a blog post about why the Beavs would be better after Quizz declared for the NFL. We went out that fall and lost to Sacramento State in our first game. I was wrong.

I saw a tweet Friday about the women’s soccer game vs. Oregon, and the first two words of the tweet were “The Rivalry.”

It reminded me that it’s been over two years since the universities agreed to move on from the name “Civil War.” To my knowledge, there’s been no attempt to give the matchup a new name. Instead, both schools seem content to continue calling it “The Rivalry,” in one of the lamest moves ever.

Sometimes good ideas arrive at the wrong time, or are never given a shot for one reason or another. Buckminster Fuller designed a 12-seat car in the 1930s that got 30 miles to the gallon on an alcohol based fuel, but an unfortunate crash at the Chicago World’s Fair derailed the project before it could get off the ground - literally. Fuller’s Dymaxion vehicle was being designed to eventually be able to fly as well.

The modern era of OSU football has unquestionably spoiled Beaver Nation. From Ken Simonton’s Parker Stadium scamper vs. the Ducks in 1998 to the Fiesta Bowl in 2001 to five consecutive bowl wins from 2003-2009, to Gar…..to Jonathan Smith’s current team, we’ve had more to cheer about in the past quarter-century than our fore-Beavers could have dreamed of.