Big mo' resides with favored Beavers.

Byline: Rob Moseley The Register-Guard

PHOENIX - The strangest of tones has been set for today's Insight Bowl.

In one corner stands mighty Notre Dame, battered by a string of postseason futility and a month of tumult in its coaching ranks. The former heavyweight champions of college football are the underdog for today's 6:45 p.m. PST kickoff. The once-proud Irish have spent the past few days dodging questions about the program's fall from greatness, and parrying queries regarding their attitude in the wake of their head coach's firing.

In the other corner, cocksure and primed for stardom, sit the Oregon State Beavers. The young upstarts from the Northwest, once the whipping boys of the collegiate world, have reversed course just as dramatically as have the Irish in the last decade.

Both teams are 6-5 entering tonight's game at Bank One Ballpark. One, Oregon State, comes in fresh off its best performance of the season, having won five of its past six games. The other, Notre Dame, still stings from its worst beating of the regular season, and has lost three of four.

How times have changed. Momentum seems to be squarely in Oregon State's corner for tonight's Round Two of this matchup. It's a different tone than four years ago, when the Beavers shocked the Irish in the Fiesta Bowl.

This time, nobody will be surprised to see Oregon State knock out Notre Dame, as the Beavers did in a 41-9 victory over the Irish in this same state to cap the 2000 season.

"I think that really set that program off, and they've carried that momentum for a long time," said Notre Dame interim head coach Kent Baer, an assistant at Stanford at the time.

Today, Baer is the top guy for the Irish, the defensive coordinator having replaced the deposed Tyrone Willingham on a temporary basis. The Irish already have hired a new coach - New England Patriots offensive coordinator Charlie Weis - and Baer won't be in South Bend next season, all of which has made for an uncomfortable few weeks.

The Beavers, on the other hand, seem rested and ready after a week in Phoenix. Mike Riley was his usual exuberant self at Monday's final press conference of the bowl preparations - in stark contrast to Baer's wearied demeanor.

"We are certainly getting excited about the ballgame, and feel like it's time to play," Riley said. "The bowl trip's over and the game is on, and I think our guys are looking forward to it."

Riley readily acknowledged the momentum OSU brings into tonight's game, which the Beavers hope will carry over into 2005. While the Insight Bowl will signal the end of a tiring marathon for Notre Dame, the Beavers view the experience in a completely different light.

"Because of the way the bowl season takes shape - it really is a separate season, and you practice for a long period of time - it is the beginning of next year," Riley said. "So I'd like a kickoff with our young guys, our redshirts. They've all gotten more practice, more time to work. It's a momentum builder for next year, and it's a great, great time for our seniors, and a great, great time for our coaches."

Conventional wisdom holds that the Beavers and quarterback Derek Anderson will feast on a Notre Dame secondary that is 114th in the country in pass defense. Oregon State finished eighth in the country in passing in the regular season, and Anderson threw for 351 yards in the Civil War.

Notre Dame, meanwhile, allowed five touchdown passes against Pittsburgh in its penultimate game of the regular season, the first time in school history that had happened. Then the Irish went out and allowed five more in a loss to USC.

"I think they're going to put the ball up 60 times," Baer said of the Beavers. "If you watched us play pass defense the last two games, I would too."

Making things worse for the Irish was a report in Monday's South Bend Tribune that team MVP Justin Tuck might not be able to start at defensive end because of a lingering knee injury. He is the team's most disruptive pass rusher, and his absence won't be easily overcome.

Tuck's absence would be like karmic good fortune for the Beavers, who face the prospect of playing without one of their own star defensive linemen. Sir Henry Anderson, who started all 11 games during the regular season at tackle for OSU, didn't make the trip to Phoenix. Riley won't discuss the specifics of his absence, which is reportedly related to academics.

In his place, Alvin Smith is expected to slide into the starting lineup. Smith finished with just two fewer tackles than Anderson's 23 this season, but had twice as many sacks (two) and more than twice as many tackles for loss (5 1/2 ).

"We don't like missing a player in our program for sure, and a guy that's contributed," Riley said. "But one of the things that's happend with our team, and what we expect, is those people that have been playing behind players in certain positions ... it's absolutely their job to come in and do the job and make plays."

Anderson's absence had been about the only development that could be labeled a "distraction" for the Beavers this week, as they try for their second straight postseason victory. The Irish, who haven't won a bowl game since 1994, haven't been nearly as fortunate.

"I know it's only been a week," Baer said. "It seems like it's been a year this has been going on. They're ready to play again."

Thus the Irish stumble into the ring tonight. There awaits a hungry opponent, the Beavers ready to land a blow that signals the latest chapter in one program's rise to prominence and another's fall from greatness.