Oregon State got smashed 77-31 by Ohio State in their season opener on Saturday, and the school’s athletic director says that’s not what he wants out of the program.
Scott Barnes joined John Canzano on “The Bald Faced Truth” radio show Tuesday and said the program does not want to trade losses for big paydays.
“We won’t do it this way,” Barnes told Canzano. “This game was scheduled several years ago… it was a one-off, payday against a perennial top-five team. That’s not our philosophy. Our philosophy is that we’ll play the middle of the Big Ten, the middle of the Big 12, we’ll play a group of five team and a FCS team… building momentum means everything right now.”
The Beavers got paid $1.7 million to visit Columbus for the game, but they went into the game knowing they were overmatched. The problem is that non-conference games are often scheduled 10 or so years in advance. At the time the game was likely scheduled, Oregon State was extremely respectable — and a regular top-25 contender — under Mike Riley. The program went into the tank after he left for Nebraska and is now rebuilding, which led to Saturday’s game being a mismatch.
Having a much friendlier non-conference schedule in the future will go a long way towards getting the Beavers’ win-loss record back where they want it to be.
