Tuesday Morning Quarterback: Friends will turn to foes when Cougars, Beavers battle Saturday

Two friendly programs in an off-field alliance must turn against each other to battle it out on the gridiron with top-25 rankings and undefeated records on the line.

It almost sounds more like the plot of a Hollywood movie than a Pac-12 football opener.

No. 21 Washington State (3-0) will host No. 14 Oregon State (3-0) in a showdown between the Pac-12’s last two committed teams at 4 p.m. Saturday (Fox) at Gesa Field in Pullman.

While university leaders at WSU and OSU unite to try to somehow keep their conference alive after the departure of 10 of their peers, their football teams will duel to the death.

OK, it’s not quite that extreme, but it’s still shaping up to be quite the meaningful football game.

Call it Batman vs. Superman, Professor X vs. Magneto, Anakin Skywalker vs. Obi-Wan Kenobi, Robin Hood vs. Little John — or name your favorite pop culture friend vs. friend trope and add Cougars vs. Beavers to the mix.

“I know nationally we’re together and we’re going to be rebuilding the Pac-12 and all those things, but on the field, it’s not going to be that friendly,” WSU coach Jake Dickert said. “It’s going to be aggressive, it’s going to be physical. They want to win and we want to win, and we know how important it is to get that 1-0 and get conference-slated games started off the right way.”

Dickert and OSU coach Jonathan Smith both have said their two schools belong on the biggest stage of college sports — the Power Five — and it’s hard to disagree with them with how their teams are playing this season.

“I totally agree with coach Dickert in regard that Oregon State and Washington State belonging and competing at the highest level,” Smith said. “There’s a proven product, not just in football but in all sports. Both … have had serious success and that should continue.”

Both teams are working to show their worth and they’ll need to get past each other to keep up their perfect seasons.

As far as the nameless rivalry goes, WSU owns a slight edge in the series at 56-48-3, and dominated the Beavers with nine straight wins from 2014-21.

But OSU won last year’s game 24-10 in Corvallis, Ore., en route to a 10-3 overall record.

The Beavers have won seven straight games dating back to last season and their No. 14 ranking is their best since they went as high as No. 7 in 2021.

We’ll get into the X’s and O’s more later in the week, but in many ways OSU is like a deluxe version of the Wisconsin team the Cougars played in Week 2.

The Beavers are extremely physical on both lines of scrimmage and they like to run the ball. Running back Damien Martinez (117 yards per game) leads an offense that averages 219 yards per game on the ground.

And the OSU defense is holding opponents to just 11 points per game, although those wins came against non-Power Five foes San Jose State, UC Davis and San Diego State.

Meanwhile, the Cougars have dropped 50 points on a Colorado State team that gave media-darling No. 19 Colorado a double-overtime scare Saturday and are coming off a 64-21 win against Northern Colorado.

The Cougars also get to sleep in their own beds for the third straight week.

Last year, WSU stumbled after its 3-0 start, losing five of next six games.

Dickert and the Cougars can’t let that happen again if they want to end this Pac-12 season on a high note before most of their affiliates depart.

And all that starts with this game against Oregon State, which is in the exact same position.

Somebody has to lose Saturday.

Wiebe may be contacted at (208) 848-2277, swiebe@lmtribune.com or on Twitter @StephanSports.