Sweet Home’s own Civil War got plenty loud for those who didn’t travel to Autzen Stadium Thursday night as the Rio Theater hosted a free communitywide party to watch the 113th rivalry game between the Oregon Ducks and Oregon State Beavers.
The Rio displayed the game on its big screen.
Beavers fans Hailee Daggett and Janessa Allen tracked attendance and the number of Ducks and Beavers present. The final count, after the first quarter was under way, was 138 €“ 35 Ducks and 103 Beavers in the auditorium.
Beavers fans were highly confident in their team going into the game.
“The Beavers are going to win,” Daggett pronounced.
“And we have more Beavers,” she added, emphasizing the dominance of Corvallis among local fans.
The Beavers easily dominated the shouting, jeering, cheering and chanting inside the theater as the game began.
“Beavers,” Allen said. “Easy win. They (the Ducks) might get ahead a little bit, but in the end, the Beavers are going to win.”
“I’m from Ohio State,” Austin Strong said. “Right now, I’m rooting for the Beavers. The Beavers have got it. I just don’t care for the Ducks.”
That should work out well for Stong, since after Oregon’s 37-33 victory, the Ducks will face Strong’s Buckeyes in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., on Jan. 1.
“If I have to, I have to root for the Ducks,” said Rio owner Mike Kinney, whose daughter Katie is in the UO marching band. “So she goes to the Rose Bowl. We want the road trip.”
“I have no clue,” said Rio Manager Caleb Kropf of his allegiances. “If I did have a clue, I wouldn’t share. I have to be neutral.”
Andrea Sanderson is normally a UCLA fan, she said. But after moving here from Los Angeles, she has become a Ducks fan. Her family was split as they watched the game.
“Rebelling?” asked her teenage daughter, Megan Sanderson. “Kind of, and all my close friends are OSU fans.”
Megan’s little sister Jessi said she supported the Beavers because her sister likes them, and “Ducks suck.”
“No Christmas for you,” replied Mom.
“I grew up in a split home,” Jacob Miner said. “My mom’s a Beaver. My dad’s a Duck. I grew up liking the Beavers more.”
He was less sure of the Beavers going into the game than others.
“I’m thinking the Ducks have a chance, but I’m definitely hoping for the Beavers,” Miner said.
Fred Klinkediel and his daughter, Rebekah Klinkediel, of Brownsville were neutral on the game.
The rest of the family makes a choice, Fred said, but “the only time we root for one or the other is if they have a chance to go to one of the bowl games. They thought the Ducks probably had the edge going into the game.
Nancy Patton wasted no time getting to the Rio after a meet and greet for economic development coordinator candidates earlier in the evening.
“I didn’t even get to go home and put my orange on,” she said, while someone walking nearby said, “You’re a Ducks fan? I’ll sit on the other side, thank you.”
Patton expected the match-up to be close, but she thought Oregon State would take it, she said.
Her son, Chris Patton, his wife and their children, with one exception, were clad in the orange and black..
“I think they’re going to be the underdogs this year,” Chris Patton said of the Beavers. “I think the Ducks have in their head what the Beavers had last year.”
He said the Beavers would do well if they grabbed onto that early in the game. “If they don’t, I don’t think they’ll be able to come back like they usually do.”
Bob Ikola stayed above the fray.
“I don’t care,” he said. “Chevrolets, Fords €“ all the same.”