The Oregon State Beavers have revealed their 2024 football schedule, which includes seven home contests and 12 games overall.
The 2024 season will be the first for Oregon State as a member of the two-team Pac-12 along with the Washington State Cougars following the departure of 10 teams to other conferences. NCAA bylaws stipulate that conferences must have at least eight members, but they also allow for a two-year grace period if a conference falls below the eight-team threshold.
Essentially, Oregon State and Washington State will still be members of the Pac-12 for at least the next season but will have to operate like Independent teams.
After some reorganization and negotiations with other teams and conferences, Oregon State now has a 12-game schedule for the 2024 season. The Beavers will open the 2024 season at home at Reser Stadium in Corvallis, Ore., against the Idaho State Bengals on Aug. 31 before traveling to face the San Diego State Aztecs on Sept. 7.
Oregon State will then return home to host consecutive games against the Oregon Ducks on Sept. 14 and the Purdue Boilermakers on Sept. 21. That leads into a newly scheduled contest on the road against the California Golden Bears on Sept. 28 in Berkeley, Calif.
In addition to those five contests, Oregon State will play one game against fellow Pac-12 member Washington State at home in Corvallis on Nov. 23. Whether the result of that one contest will crown a Pac-12 champion remains to be seen.
As a result of a football scheduling agreement between the two-team Pac-12 and the Mountain West Conference, Oregon State will play six additional games against Mountain West opponents. In order to schedule those contests, Mountain West teams will play seven conference games in 2024 instead of their usual eight. Additionally, the Mountain West matchups against both Oregon State and Washington State will not count as conference games for any of the participants.
The six Mountain West opponents added to Oregon State’s football schedule in 2024 include UNLV, San Jose State, and Colorado State at home and Air Force, Nevada, and Boise State on the road. Dates for those contests will be announced in the coming months.
Oregon State will enter the 2024 season with a new head coach following Jonathan Smith’s departure to take over at Michigan State. The Beavers will be led by Trent Bray, who served as the defensive coordinator at Oregon State for the past two-and-half seasons.
2024 Oregon State Football Schedule
- 08/31 – Idaho State
- 09/07 – at San Diego State
- 09/14 – Oregon
- 09/21 – Purdue
- 09/28 – at California
- 11/23 – Washington State
- TBA – Colorado State
- TBA – San Jose State
- TBA – UNLV
- TBA – at Boise State
- TBA – at Air Force
- TBA – at Nevada
A less than satisfying new schedule with only 4 games against Power 4 teams down from the usual 9 04 10. I wish them good luck in selling those games out.
Pac-2 championship on Nov 23!
Interesting that Oregon State and Washington State aren’t playing each other OR their traditional in-state rivals during Rivalry Week. Looks like the Oregon and Washington games will be early season games during traditional “non-conference” season… and they play each other the weekend before Thanksgiving. I guess having it the same week that Oregon and Washington play their Big 10 Rivalry Week game could get weird…?
I wonder if they’ll try to pick a “rivalry worthy” MWC opponent… Boise State seems like it would make some sense geographically for either of them. Maybe Nevada? Maybe… Hawaii? I don’t know.
I guess it looks like a lot of the MWC teams have kind of given up on any “Rivalry Week” type traditions though. They didn’t end the regular season with AF/CSU, Fresno/San Jose, Nevada/UNLV, SDSU/Hawaii, Boise/Utah State, etc., so maybe that disinterest will carry over to the Cougars and Beavers? Feels like at some point the MWC used to play some of these games in Rivalry Week, but maybe they decided against it for some reason? I know other schools… like Oklahoma… moved away from playing a big rival in the final week, even before realignment will do that for them next year. (For that matter, I wonder if LSU is OU’s new “rivalry week” annual opponent, or if they’ll swap off with them, Arkansas, and Missouri…? But that’s kind of off topic. My mind is wandering. Anyway….)
Surely with as much control over their schedule as they should have Oregon State and Washington State won’t take a bye the last weekend of the regular season, right? I know it happens, but that’s usually teams where the conference couldn’t help it, I think?
I wonder… since the 2 remaining Pac 12 teams won’t have the possibility of a Championship Game on Championship Weekend… would it be against the rules for them to just play each other THAT week if they wanted to? Obviously MWC teams who think they have a chance at being in the MWC Championship Game wouldn’t be available, but… that would be a wacky spectical to throw in the mix, maybe on the Friday before most of the power conference championships are played…
Remember, back when FBS teams played only 11 games per season, many schools had their rivalry week the Saturday before Thanksgiving. The Apple Cup, FSU/UF, Ohio State/Michigan, etc. were all on that day. In fact, Cal and Stanford have played each other mostly on that day for the last 20 years.
As for the Mountain West, they’ve never really had rivalry week be the last weekend of the season. SJSU and Fresno State have played a few times on that date, but that’s it. Wyoming/CSU hasn’t been on that date in years.