Cliff Kirkpatrick

After a brief break for Thanksgiving, the prep for the Civil War continues. The Oregon State football team gets back to practice Saturday evening.

Here are some link to stories you make have missed while eating turkey and pumpkin pie. Here’s one on Lyle Moevao prepping QB Sean Canfield for the experience in Autzen Stadium. He’s a story on TE coach Robin Ross, a former Oregon coach, going up against the Ducks.

Also, as you watch games this weekend there are teams to pull for if you are a Beavers fan. Yes, we all know that if they win the Civil War they go to the Rose Bowl and that’s all you are pulling for.

However, what if they lose? You can read about their Holiday Bowl chances here if you didn’t see the story earlier in the week.

To help insure that you want UCLA to beat USC and Arizona State to beat Arizona. If one of the USC or Arizona team wins, you want that team to lose the following week when they go head-to-head.

Basically, you want OSU in second place all by itself. If not, the Beavers are at the mercy of the Holiday Bowl selection committee and if they vote against USC or Arizona .

And if they lose the vote, that begins the slide down to the Las Vegas Bowl or Emerald Bowl.

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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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Oregon State football coach Mike Riley completed his staff for the season Monday, bringing on former linebackers coach Robin Ross as a his offensive graduate assistant. For the full story with an interview with Ross, read my story in Tuesday’s GT here.

Ross left the Beavers after his one season in 2005 season to be the head coach at NCAA Division II Western Washington, but the school dropped the program in January.

That made him available to fill the hole Tim Euhus left. Euhus went to work selling medical supplies recently. Ross will be in the same role as Euhus, coaching the tight ends.

Ross can afford to be in the non-paid, but academic scholarship position because he is being paid under the contract from Western Washington

“He’s very good in our profession, and has a lot of experience,” Riley said. “He’s very good coach, good with players, a good guy and a good fit for our program.”

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