Gazette-Times reporter

Much has happened for the Oregon State football program in the past 10 years.

In 1999, the Beavers had their first winning season since 1970 and went to a bowl game for the first time since 1965.

In 2000, the Beavers won a share of the Pacific-10 Conference title and went to the Fiesta Bowl, where they routed Notre Dame and finished the season as the No. 5 team in the nation.

Since then, the Beavers have made five more bowl appearances, had a Lou Groza Award winner, a Biletnikoff Award winner and now are a Civil War win away from the Rose Bowl.

Ten years ago, the Beavers were mired in a 28-year losing streak. With a 4-6 record going into the Oregon game, the streak was not going to end. In fact, there really wasn’t anything special on the line that Civil War game. The Ducks were 8-2 and headed to another bowl game. The Beavers were staying home again.

However, the 1998 season hadn’t been a typical one for OSU. The Beavers were actually 4-2 in coach Mike Riley’s second year before losing four straight, the final three all heartbreakers. The Beavers lost 35-34 to Washington, 20-19 to California and 41-34 to UCLA.

“I think we might have been the best 5-6 team in America that year,” Inoke Breckterfield, then a senior defensive end for the Beavers, said. “We started off slow, obviously Jonathan Smith came in and made a big difference in our offensive production. To end up 5-6, we were close with Washington, California, even that UCLA game down the wire. That 5-6 (record) doesn’t really tell the true story of how that team was.”

That left the Civil War in Corvallis. Little did the Beavers and their fans know that the game was going to be the turning point for the program.

“I was just going out there to have fun,” Ken Simonton, then a freshman running back, said. “I think looking back in hindsight, you realize how big that was for the fans and how big it was for my teammates.”

The game turned out to be a wild ride for both teams. It went two overtimes before the Beavers took a 44-41 win.

There were big plays, big penalties, a premature celebration and a big run to set off a final rush to the field.

The score went back and forth in the fourth. The Ducks seemed to take control with a touchdown and a 31-24 lead with 2 minutes, 34 seconds left. But the Beavers took just over a minute to drive 71 yards and tied it when Tim Alexander grabbed a short throw from Smith and proceeded to slip several tackle attempts and went 30 yards, finally dragging a defender into the end zone.

That meant OT.

The Beavers got the ball first and Simonton scored on a 1-yard run.

When Andrae Holland knocked the ball out of Donald Haynes’ hands on a fourth-down pass from Akili Smith, OSU fans swarmed the field in celebration.

The game, however, was not over. Holland had been flagged for pass interference.

“I think at that time it was a thing where we felt like we had won the game,” Keith Heyward, then a sophomore defensive back, said. “It kind of deflates you, especially as a secondary player, like, ‘Ah, pass interference.’ But you’ve just got to line up and play again, so that’s what we did and we stopped them. Refs make calls and you just have to play the next down.”

It took about 10 minutes to force the fans off the field so play could continue.

The Beavers had to regain their game mindset and push the penalty out of their thoughts. It was draining for both teams.

“My memory that stands out the most is when we thought we won the game and everybody rushed the field and to be on defense and then have to go back on defense again and try to defend that end zone, it was a tiring game for I think both sides,” Breckterfield said. “It took a lot out of everybody.”

Oregon scored and got the ball to start the second overtime. The Ducks managed a field goal and the Beavers had a second chance to celebrate.

The Beavers moved the ball to the UO 16 and Riley called a stretch play, with tight end Marty Maurer going in motion to the right and Simonton then following with the ball.

“We had been using that motion quite a bit during the game and had some different stuff off of it, so it was a balancing play,” Riley said. “We’d run the inside play off of it or the outside play and at that time we chose the outside play and we took it in.”

Riley did not make the call with the idea that Simonton was going to score.

“From that distance, probably not, but I felt good about how we had been running that play,” Riley said. “We maybe hadn’t been running out of that formation, but that play we had been doing a good job with, so we felt good about the call.”

Simonton hit the corner and sprinted down the sideline into a mass of OSU fans waiting in the end zone.

Simonton said once he got to the corner, there was open field.

“I remember it was stretch play to the right-hand side,” Simonton said. “Basically, I knew I was going to score.”

At that point, Simonton said he was simply relieved that the game had come to an end with the Beavers in front.

“Just to get that game over with all the false alarms, the fans going on on the field, (was a relief),” he said.

The fans filled the field for the second time.

The Beavers had their upset.

“Then Kenny Simonton, of course, running around the corner in that last overtime to win and just the rush of fans and beating’ on your helmet and everything,” Heyward said. “That was the first time ever. I had never seen anything like it before, experienced anything like that before that.”

It was the final game for the seniors. There was no bowl game. But if one game could be singled out as a turning point for the OSU football program, it was the 1998 Civil War.

It was the catalyst for the winning seasons to come.

“To win that game, I think was a defining moment that kind of jump-started the rest of the players who were returning and obviously the very next season they went to a bowl game,” Breckterfield said. “We were on the verge that year. It was so many years of losing, you try find a way to win and it was more that year everyone figured it out and it rubbed off on the guys going into the next year and it catapulted the program to a bowl game and we’ve been to a bowl game pretty much every year since.”

The seniors did not get to experience the success that followed, but they know they helped make it happen.

“Inside, it makes you feel good to know that people look at us as that team,” Breckterfield said. “That coaching staff, that football team, everyone part of that program helped to turn this program around.

“Inside it feels great. At the time, you couldn’t even have foreseen where we’ve come. We never went to the bowl games, we never had a defining moment for that era, but to have people say that about us is huge.”