Opinion: Was Saturday Night the Worst Loss in Oregon State Program History?
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Some are referring to it as "rock bottom" for the season.
After a big-time win against rival Washington State the week before, the Beavers suffered a second-half meltdown against one of the worst teams in all of FBS.
Despite three chances in the final seven minutes to retake the lead and avoid a catastrophic collapse, Oregon State just couldn't get the ball in the end zone.
As Gabarri Johnson's fourth-and-five pass with 40 seconds left fell incomplete (sealing SHSU's first win of the season), I got a text from a friend that read: "Dude, is this the worst loss Oregon State has ever had?"
In the moment, I told him no, I didn't think it was. But after having more than 24 hours to sit on it and process all the details, I think I might have to reconsider.
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Prior to Saturday night, the worst loss in program history (at least in the modern era) was fairly easy to pinpoint. The Beavers suffered an overtime lose to FCS Sacramento State in their opening game of the 2011 season. Right after the loss to Sam Houston State a couple nights ago, I responded to my friend that this 2011 loss to a Big Sky foe still had to take the cake as the worst Oregon State loss in our lifetimes. After all, they are in a lower division of college football. How can a loss to FBS Sam Houston State possibly be worse?
To play devil's advocate here, I am going to make an argument for people that say Saturday night's loss was, in fact, worse than the 2011 embarrassment against Sac State.
A lot of weight to this argument centers around the timing of the loss. When Mike Riley's Beavers fell to the Hornets in 2011, it was the first game of a season where the Beavers had lost quite a few starters from the year before (including Jacquizz Rogders and Stephen Paea). While a loss like this is never acceptable, it does occasionally happen to quality FBS teams at the beginning of their schedule (Notre Dame lost to NIU early last year, and went on to make the national championship). My point here is to stress that strange things can happen at the start of a season when chemistry for a team just isn't there yet.
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This, of course, certainly wasn't the case for the Beavers a couple nights ago. It was the TENTH game of the year, directly following what was, by far, their best victory of 2025. This deep into the season, Oregon State should've had every opportunity to figure out how to attack the Bearkats. In addition, they should've had enough offensive chemistry by this point to breeze through a team that came into Saturday night ranked dead last in the FBS in total defense.
This, overall, was probably the most depressing aspect of the game. After taking a commanding 17-0 lead, the Beaver offense continuously sputtered. Their run game was stymied in the second half by winless SHSU, a team that allowed 55 points against LA Tech the week prior.
So, was this the worst loss in Oregon State football history? This question, of course, is subjective. But if you were to say that indeed it was, I wouldn't fight you too hard on it.
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Ben Pahl is a sportswriter and broadcaster based in Portland, Oregon. His work covering college and professional sports has been featured by the Orange Media Network at Oregon State University as well as KBVR.fm. His other career stops in sports include the Portland Pickles baseball club and the NBA G-League's Rip City Remix.