Oregon State

Oregon State refused to disappear. When the Pac-12 emptied — UCLA, USC, Colorado, Utah and six others sprinting for the Big Ten and ACC exits between 2022 and 2024 — only the Beavers and Washington State were left holding a 108-year-old conference with no other members. The choice was to fold or fight. Oregon State sued, won the legal right to keep the conference's name and assets, and started rebuilding a league from the remnants. The institutional act of that decision — staying when staying was the hardest possible thing — became the program's modern identity. The fanbase in Corvallis filled Reser Stadium through the holdout years as a statement, not a reward.

The 2025 season collected the football bill for all of it. Trent Bray's rebuilding program went 0-7 to start, lost the headcoach job in October, and finished 2-10 under interim Robb Akey — the price of a roster that had to be rebuilt twice over, for a conference still adding members, against a schedule that had few soft spots. On December 3, the Beavers hired JaMarcus Shephard — Alabama's co-offensive coordinator, first-time head coach — to run two rebuilds at once: a 2-10 roster and a Pac-12 that is still becoming whatever it will become. Boise State joined the reformed Pac-12 starting in 2026, which helps. The conference still doesn't fully exist in the form it will eventually take.

The 2026 question is what a year-one JaMarcus Shephard offense can produce on a roster that has been hemorrhaging talent since the realignment wave started. Oregon State's neighbor — Oregon — walked into the Big Ten and left the Civil War behind without a backward glance. The Beavers stayed. The 2000 Fiesta Bowl season, the 41-9 rout of Notre Dame that was the program's modern high-water mark, and the 2022 ten-win run under Jonathan Smith are the proof that the ceiling exists. Whether Shephard can find it from the current floor, in a rebuilt conference, is the whole story.