Cliff Kirkpatrick

Oregon State TE coach Robin Ross takes any time he faces this weekend’s opponent personally.

He graduated from Washington State in 1977, played for the Cougars and coached the defensive line there in 1986.

“Any time you play there can be other things besides just another game involved,” Ross said. “It’s where you know people. You work with those people and it becomes more than a game. You want to come back and do your best. You want to go win, and don’t want to go lose.”

Ross coached there when current Washington State coach Paul Wulff and CB coach Jody Sears played for the Cougars. WR coach Mike Levenseller played on the same WSU team as Ross.

He still knows the secretary, Marie Taylor, who has worked there since he was with the program.

While he wants to win this week, Ross feels bad for his alma mater and friends with the struggles they gone through.

“You hate to see it,” Ross said. “I spent a lot of time at Washington State. I enjoyed my career there. You would like to see them win every game but one. I think they are playing hard. They have gotten better. It has been a tough season for them. Things take time.”

Injury report
Backup RB Ryan McCants (sick) was out of practice Thursday and most likely the game, coach Mike Riley said.

“We’ll see if he can go,” Riley said. “He had 102 temperature today, so my guess is he’s out. You can’t play a guy in that condition.”

Reserve LB Kevin Unga (groin) is probably out for the game.

LB Tony Wilson (knee) returned to practice this week. The redshirt freshman has been out since the end of spring practice recovering from ACL surgery. Wilson was the projected No. 2 MLB this season.

“I don’t know that he’ll get into the games this year,” Riley said. “He could help if he’s really ready to go. We’ll see. We might start by getting him in on a special team.

Sound of quiet noise
The Beavers did their usual Thursday tradition of playing crowd noise during the practice. The funny part was that it wasn’t all that loud. At one point this week there was a report that only 15,000 fans will be in Pullman for the Washington State game.

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