Beavers look ahead to rematch with FSU.

Byline: BOB RODMAN The Register-Guard

CORVALLIS - They were the reigning Fiesta Bowl champions, the defending Pac-10 Conference co-champions and were chosen by Sports Illustrated as the No. 1 college football team in the country.

And then the Beavers were leveled by a Fresno State haymaker, 44-24.

"It was an eye-opener," said Oregon State offensive guard Mike Kuykendall more than a year after the event - and just days before the two teams tee it up again, this time on Saturday at Reser Stadium - but the memory is as clear as the proverbial bell.

It was also a poke in the eye, a smash in the mouth and, in the case of OSU cornerback/punt returner Terrell Roberts, a bone-breaking experience.

In the play that has come to symbolize the apparent statement Fresno State was to make that night in the central California desert, Roberts was bulldozed by the Bulldogs' Kendall Edwards while attempting to make a fair catch of a second-quarter FSU punt.

The torpedo-like hit on Roberts broke his left index finger, knocking him out of the game as well as OSU's next date with New Mexico State.

"Was it a cheap shot?" Roberts, a 5-foot-10, 198-pound senior, said earlier this week. "I don't know if he meant to do it. I know I've hit guys early and hard."

"That's the play I remember," said Bryce McGill, the Fresno State strong safety who was in on a game-high 11 tackles, "when Kendall took Roberts out of the game. Then Kendall got up and hit another guy on the play."

Edwards will not be in uniform for the return match with OSU, however. He sustained a season-ending knee injury when struck by one of his own players during Fresno State's game against San Diego State on Aug. 29.

Gone but hardly forgotten.

"Fresno State played as if the game meant more to them," said Al Simmons, the assistant coach in charge of Oregon State's secondary. "I don't know if the coaches or the kid were behind it, but that play (on Roberts) was the statement they were going to make somewhere in that game."

Then-Fresno State quarterback David Carr made his own statement, throwing for 340 yards and four touchdowns. The Bulldogs' defense made its statement, as well, limiting the much-hailed OSU running game to just 27 yards.

"We flat got our butt kicked," said Dennis Erickson, the Oregon State coach whose team has swept past Eastern Kentucky, Temple and UNLV by a combined score of 131-30 and is attempting to start a season 4-0 for just the third time since 1957.

"But it wasn't Fresno State's fault. It was our fault."

The trash-talking was free-flowing and frequent. The Fresno State fans fired verbal volley after verbal volley at the Beavers, the word "overrated" most likely still ringing in their ears. It was, more than one observer noted, an uncomfortable evening that ended a shade on the ugly side for OSU.

"I think they've probably got a lot of revenge in mind," said McGill, a 5-11, 210-pound junior.

"There could be some revenge in all of this," Kuykendall said.

Roberts agreed many of the Fresno State fans parked behind the OSU bench were "boisterous and rowdy in the second half."

"The players," he said, "they didn't have to talk."

McGill said the Bulldogs, 1-2 with losses to Wisconsin and Oregon and a win over San Diego State, do not have a thing about trying to prove they belong on the same field as Pac-10, Big Ten or Big 12 teams.

"But every week it seems like when we play those teams, they don't really want us around," he said.

Which is why, it seems, Fresno State players seem to have a "take-no-prisoner" approach to their games.

"The coaches don't force us to play that way, but they do like to see the big hits, to see us take people out," McGill said. "We're going to let teams know that, win or lose, they've been in a football game, and a physical one at that."

And that, Roberts said, is just fine with the Beavers, who are making their second straight national television appearance on the Fox Sports Net telecast beginning at 3:30 p.m.

"There's nothing personal about this game as far as I'm concerned," Roberts said. "If it becomes a vendetta thing, then you do something cheap and hurt your team.

"We want to win, and will do whatever it takes to do that. There will be some hard hitting. They'll bring their `A' game, and we'll bring ours."

Simmons said he preaches day in and day out to his players about "controlling their emotions ... to play smart and don't do anything that will hurt the team.

"No shouting matches, no punching matches," he said, "and don't let anyone draw you into those things."

But some of the Beavers still have managed to have their moments.

In three games, OSU has been flagged 33 times for 357 yards, and some of those penalties were of the personal foul and/or unsportsmanlike conduct variety.

Pat Hill, the Fresno State coach who said he does not encourage on-the-edge behavior, suggested that the downer Oregon State experienced last year at Fresno was not a whole lot unlike the uppercut to the chin the Bulldogs absorbed in 1999, when the Beavers blasted Fresno State 46-23 in Erickson's home debut as the OSU coach.

"That was a hostile game for us," Hill said, "but we took our thumping, packed our bags and went home."

CAPTION(S):

WAYNE EASTBURN / The Register-Guard OSU's Terrell Roberts suffered a broken finger on a punt return last season when he was leveled by Fresno State's Kendall Edwards.