We’ve talked ad nauseum about how wildly disappointing the season has been, and if I’m being honest, OSU being this good right now feels just like salt in the wound. We were the ones who scrapped and survived two years in purgatory without chaos and an insane dropoff on the field, not OSU. And yet its the Beavers’ new coach — with an explosive offense — who has leveled up his program while WSU wallows among the dregs of FBS for the first time in nearly 20 years.

This was supposed to be our story. And I’m extremely annoyed that it isn’t.

But, there’s always hope in this one. WSU and OSU have played some bonkers games in recent history, and the “better” team hasn’t always won. It’s worth pointing out that the home team has usually held the advantage, and this game is on the road, but still: For my own mentals, I need to believe that weirdness is possible today.

The challenge is pretty damn big though. While the Beavers haven’t exactly piled up wins against a murderers row of opponents, it’s never a bad sign when you’re soundly beating folks, even if they’re inferior: In their last four games (Montana, UTEP, Colorado State, San Diego State), the Beavers have won by an average margin of five TDs. There’s every reason to believe that they’re pretty damn good.

And their fans certainly believe: The game is sold out and the get-in price is over $100 as we speak, and any seat in the lower bowl is going for well over $200. The environment will be hostile, and that stupid chainsaw sound is likely to blare over and over and over.

Which makes me wonder if the Cougars will have it in them to fight if things start going badly. We’ve seen teams lose a bunch of games before, and there’s usually a point at which they stop thinking they really have a chance to win games. I don’t think the Cougs are there yet — changing the QB certainly helps in that regard — but I think they’re probably perilously close. If it turns out Owen Eshelman plays just as poorly as Caden Pinnick, and the OSU offense starts piling up points after being given short fields …

Please, Cougs … just give me something to be happy about today.

Consensus via TeamRankings.com.

Predictive model probabilities: 19% chance for WSU to win, 54% chance to beat the spread (at +18)

Everyone knows Ohio State’s Jeremiah Smith is the best receiver in college football. Not everyone knows that the second best — by just about whatever metric you want to use — is Oregon State’s Jesse Legree.