Beavers should look back and smile on this season.

Byline: Ron Bellamy / The Register-Guard

PHOENIX - Don't hold it against Oregon State that, in the end, its schedule turned out to be laden with flawed teams.

Or that the last of them turned out to be Notre Dame, in the Insight Bowl, before 45,917 Tuesday night in Bank One Ballpark and a national television audience on ESPN.

Final score: OSU 38, Notre Dame 21, and if the Fighting Irish hadn't fired coach Tyrone Willingham before this game, they'd have probably fired him afterward.

And in the final analysis, you can look at this Oregon State season in two ways.

First, that 7-5 isn't exactly a chest-thumping record, not when two of those victories came over teams (Washington and Stanford) that had such bad seasons that their coaches were subsequently forced to resign and fired, respectively.

And when the Beavers' Insight Bowl opponent had already fired its coach.

Save for the sheer and guilty pleasure of a Civil War walloping of Oregon (a team, by the way, that lost to UCLA, which lost to Wyoming in the Las Vegas Bowl, and the technical term for that is Ugly) and a valiant loss at LSU (yes, in overtime, Mike Riley should have had the Beavers ready to go for two), the OSU season was as much about survival as anything else.

And yet, from a different view, you could argue that this Oregon State season was quietly and importantly impressive, because. ...

Because a lot of teams don't come back from 1-4, and the Beavers did, finishing with a flourish, winning six of seven, winning their last two games by a combined 88-42.

Because they did it without any real threat of a running game, and with a largely immobile quarterback, prone to throwing interceptions, and with a go-to wide receiver who, at the beginning of his career, was a guy who no other Pac-10 school thought worth a scholarship.

Because they won five Pac-10 games, the second-best total in school history, and won a bowl game over a team from a program that still has considerable market value in college football.

Because they did all that even as the pillars that will support the expansion of Reser Stadium loomed over every home game, and loomed over the program as well, the point being that when you're embarking on an $93 million expansion project to increase the size of the stadium to a still-small (by Pac-10 standards) 43,000 seats, the home team shouldn't have a nightmare season.

It started that way, but didn't end that way, and in the end, in the Insight Bowl, the Beavers won their way, with Anderson throwing on almost every down, leaving OSU with a signature performance - 28 completions in 45 attempts, 358 yards, four touchdowns, no interceptions.

Including the Civil War, Anderson threw eight touchdown passes in his last two college games, with 52 completions in 86 attempts for 709 yards and just one pick.

And a reasonable Oregon State fan - and Oregon fan, for that matter - needs to appreciate seasons like this one, certainly hoping for better but understanding, as Oregon knows once again, that there isn't much difference between being here and being nowhere.

Face it, please: Since the November day the Beavers clobbered the Ducks in the Civil War, the Pac-10 didn't become an easier go for either Willamette Valley program:

Another Trojan, quarterback Matt Leinart, won the Heisman Trophy, and the Trojans will play for the national championship, of which they won a share last year.

The Trojans aren't newly arrived homesteaders; they're Old Money in the Pac-10, and the Ducks and Beavers took advantage of their down cycle at the turn of the millennium, but now USC is back, entrenched at the top.

Jeff Tedford stayed at Cal. Consider this argument: The coach is more of a threat to the rest of the league there than, say, at Washington, because Cal's a tougher job, an easier place for the program to slide back to mediocrity, and Tedford is Cal's best chance of avoiding that, because of his on-field coaching ability, and because he's clearly got the credibility and clout to get things done off the field at Cal as well.

Which brings us to the Huskies, who have hired the coach that Notre Dame fired, Willingham, and to Stanford, which has lured Walt Harris from Pittsburgh to replace Buddy Teevens.

Harris is something that Teevens wasn't - a proven winner as a head coach.

But it's the Willingham hire that is the biggest threat to Oregon State, and arguably even more so to Oregon. He wasn't Washington's first choice, but he's emerging as a good choice; he has presence, credibility, class, an image.

Willingham won at Stanford (and at Notre Dame, for that matter, the team's performance in the Insight Bowl notwithstanding) and he'll find it easier to win at Washington. He'll hurt the Ducks and Beavers in Northwest recruiting, and he'll give the UW donors reason to believe that the program is on the way back.

Remember, when the Trojans hired Pete Carroll, he wasn't their first choice, nor did the selection of a guy who'd failed as an NFL head coach seem a can't-miss pick. But Carroll hasn't missed; don't be quick to bet that Willingham will.

With that as the context, the Beavers try to protect their niche in the league. They're not Washington, or Stanford, or USC; they're more akin to Washington State, the league's hard-scrabble leader in doing more with less, a program that can win 10 games, but follow that with a losing record.

It's not unreasonable to hope that the Beavers will win a league title now and then, once a decade, and contend in other years - the stadium expansion is part of that - but it's also not unreasonable to suggest that, for Oregon State, simply getting to an Insight Bowl is a good deal, too, especially when you're the only Northwest Pac-10 team in a bowl game.

With two winning seasons now under Riley, and with the stadium expansion a reality, the Beavers should have some measurable recruiting momentum.

After all, the Beavers leave here with three straight winning seasons. They leave here celebrating a second straight bowl win in December.

It's not January, but it's certainly not bad, either.