Will Oregon State be last team standing that can challenge rival Oregon in Pac-12 North?

The Oregon State Beavers lost a game to the FCS powerhouse Eastern Washington Eagles to begin the season and everybody wrote them off. But this is an Oregon State team that seemingly, for whatever reason, does the same thing every season… Lose a ‘bad’ early season game, come on in the middle of the season, finish strong.

The Beavs have reeled off five straight and should make it six this weekend against Cal. Then they’ll get their biggest test so far against a good, but tired Stanford team coming off of a surely emotional game against the 9th ranked UCLA Bruins. If OSU can take that game at home, they become an interesting team to keep an eye on.

The rest of the schedule seems to be as tough as the Pac-12 can offer, with USC at home, ASU in Tempe, Washington in Corvallis and then Oregon to finish up the season in Autzen. With the nation’s leading passing offense, it’s viable to say that OSU is the best team in the conference outside of Oregon and maybe UCLA.

In the end this may be premature, but because of some losses by Stanford and Washington, Oregon State is starting to look like the only team left that may be able to challenge the rival Oregon Ducks in the North division. The Card still figure in, with games against both Oregon schools still on the docket, but a loss against UCLA this weekend could basically eliminate them from the race.