The Toilet Bowl and That’s No Joke 1983

Personally, I heard the joke about the bad team playing in the toilet bowl almost 50 years ago and I am more than done with it. It’s old and it’s tired and I would prefer to never hear it again. It wasn’t really very amusing the first time.

But, there was once a game that was officially titled the Toilet Bowl, well not it’s not officially official. That’s just what the game was called in the big list of nicknames to remember games by.

Believe me, this is not a game that anyone wants to remember. Well, not if they are in their right mind.

This game was a real dud. It wasn’t about great defenses, either, causing two teams to battle it out to a now infamous 0-0 tie.

Even though the old jokes are boring and dull, this game really deserved the title The Toilet Bowl.

The Oregon versus Oregon State game is normally referred to as the annual Civil War game. It’s often a pretty interesting game with some excitement. But, not in the 1983 season.

Rich Brooks was the coach for the Oregon Ducks. Even though he had an overall losing record,

Brooks was not a bad coach. But, the Ducks were still struggling in 1983. Brooks had had a couple of winning years, but the previous two seasons in 1981 and 1982, the Ducks won a total of 4 games.

The Civil War game is always the last game of the season for these teams and in the 1983 season, the Ducks came in with a rather unimpressive 4-6 record.

The Oregon State Beavers were even worse that season. Coached by Joe Avezzano, whose biggest claim to fame as a coach was as the super intense and animated special teams’ coach for the Dallas Cowboys under Jimmy Johnson when the team was really good.

As a head coach at Oregon State, Avezzano bombed terribly. His overall record was 6-47-2 over 5 seasons. 1983 was actually one of his better seasons and the Beavers were coming into this game with a 2-8 record.

While terrible coming in, both teams were also down to their 3rd team quarterbacks. At Oregon State, starter Ricky Greene and his backup Jeff Seay were both injured. They were down to pre-season 3rd team quarterback Ladd McKittrick and he was completing passes at an amazingly poor 38 percent on the season. For the year, he had 4 touchdown passes and 18 interceptions. Now, it’s not always the quarterback’s fault, but 4 touchdowns with 18 picks is pretty horrific.

Oregon State did have a tailback named Bryce Oglesby that averaged over 5 yards per carry. He ran for 878 yards and maybe should have seen the ball more than attempting to throw it with the 3rd string quarterback.

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The difference in the 3rd string quarterbacks is that Miller eventually developed into a good player and was a 1st round draft pick by the Atlanta Falcons. He was no Tom Brady, but Miller played 10

seasons in the NFL.

The lack of quarterbacking was not the only dilemma on the 19th of November in Eugene, Oregon in 1983. It was also one of the wettest years in history and there was a driving rainstorm that day. The field was saturated with inches of water and the conditions were unsuitable for a college football game even if one team was a Duck and the other a Beaver.

The Oregon Ducks were heavy favorites to beat the Beavers for the 9th straight season, but to do that they would have to at least cross the goal line, or kick the football through the uprights. It wasn’t going to happen.

In reality, Oregon State dominated the game, but they were unable to score as well. They had one promising drive end on an Oglesby fumble of a clearly wet football. The Beavers drove to the 9-yard line but missed a field goal. They tackled the Oregon punter at the Duck 7-yard line, but fullback James Terrell had a turn at fumbling a wet ball

Duck quarterback Chris Miller was totally ineffective in the first half, but to make things worse, he fumbled the ball on his own 31-yard line giving the Beavers one more first-half shot at scoring with 4 seconds left. Of course, the Beaver kicker missed the field goal, keeping the game tied at 0-0.

It was a tale of two different halves. The second half was the exact opposite of the first, with possibly the Duck coaching staff delivering a Knute Rockne type of pep talk.

Oregon drove to the State 3 yard line and this time it was the Duck kicker missing the close field goal which was the distance of an extra point.

Duck fullback Todd Bland blandly dropped the ball on the Beaver 5-yard line ending another drive. Then, the Oregon kicker missed another field goal, but at least this one was from 50 yards out.

This was a nightmare of a game. It was like a bad pee wee football game, or like watching your nephew play 7th-grade football.

There were 11 fumbles and 5 interceptions, but again the rain was coming down in waves and the ball was wet. That affected every facet of the game and especially the kicking.

Before the days of overtime, this game could have lasted until the following day with nobody ever scoring.

Aptly named the Toilet Bowl, this game should go down in the annals of time as the worst college football game ever played. There could possibly be a person out there that watched this game and was so emotionally destroyed that they never watched another football game in their life.

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