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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Oregon State sophomore LB Tony Wilson (knee) will be out for the season recovering from knee surgery defensive coordinator Mark Banker said. For more details read my OSU notebook in Tuesday’s GT.

Coach Mike Riley predicted as much early in the summer. With training camp opening Aug. 10, I had to make sure.

Click this link for a story on former OT Andy Levitre signing with the Buffalo Bills. It’s also about his first day in training camp.

Levitre at Bills camp Monday. PHOTO/AP

Take part in the latest poll on the Beavers Sports site here. It’s on what home game you are most excited to see in person.

The last poll asked you what bowl game you thing the Beavers are going to this year. The Holiday Bowl won with 47 percent followed by the Rose (18 percent), Las Vegas (13), national title game (10) Sun (five), Emerald (four), Poinsettia (one) and they won’t qualify (two).

Check out this story about the Rose Bowl here. Starting in 2010, if the Big Ten or Pac-10 champ heads to the national title game, a non-BCS team that qualifies for the BCS must be taken by the Rose Bowl.

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