#70 Oregon State

Mike W
Oct 14, 2023
3 min read

Updated: Dec 16, 2024

Corvallis, OR

Reser Stadium

October 14, 2023

Oregon State 36 - UCLA 24 (ESPN Recap)

The pacific northwest is far geographically from southeastern Florida. 12 hours door-to-door to hotel in Corvallis with no delays and a 25-minute layover in Dallas is a long travel day to not end up in Europe.

Made it to Corvallis with the business school crew of Evan & Stephen plus attracted Erik for his second game ever (this one was warmer). We did our normal schedule: bar hopped Thursday night while betting against one another in pop-a-shot, air hockey, Guardians of the Galaxy pinball, claw game, road trip spin game, corn hole, jet pong, credit card roulette, etc. usually as the only people in the bar. Back at the hotel, we auctioned dice off to one another way too many times.

Friday, we didn’t get to see the Ring of Fire eclipse in the morning because the weather in Oregon is permanently cloud-cover gray. We did see some good leaf foliage and play shuffleboard, card games, and dice games while bouncing around campus and eating some solid food. Did you know that the OSU Learning Center was built within the last 10 years? Stephen didn’t either but found out through a bet that I won. Friday night the bars were not empty, so much so in fact that the Oregon St band was performing through them and we were fortunate to experience that. Jello shots, corn hole against an overhand thrower, catching the end of Stanford / Colorado, and then picking up the morning Pepsi on the way into the hotel.

GameDay was perfect weather and kickoff time of 5pm local. We walked onto the field 4.5 hours before game time, took a few photos, and then began tailgating. Heavy amounts of cornhole, watching the other OSU in orange and black beat Kansas, some beer pong against pharma grads, one shake and bake shotgun round, and making friends at Ian’s tailgate and Shannon & Wayne’s tailgate, who are way too “Oregon Nice” and were running an impressive tailgate culinary program with two chefs. Right before entering the stadium, the highlight of the tailgate was the entire parking lot going crazy when the Oregon Ducks missed a game-tying FG as time expired and lost to Washington.

The game was a good one. Lots of interceptions, too many points for the U55.0, a home team win, and a win on UCLA TTU25.5. Plays of the game were a Pick 6 for OSU before half, as well as the ref not calling a roughing the punter against UCLA in Q4 leading to a very motivated fan base that influenced UCLA’s last meaningful drive. DJ U played a good game for the Beavs and it was cool to see one of my MAC crushes all grown up in a P5 uniform. We got to quasi-rush the field which was fun and led to some great photos. No one was cold during the game, and had someone gotten cold, there was a Canadian/Oregonian willing to rent his jacket to us for $1/minute, so we were covered.