When Washington State hired Kirby Moore as football coach last Dec. 12, Moore might have looked around and assessed the immediate challenges: The need to select a staff; to scramble to piece together a recruiting class; and to try to goose the Cougars’ budget to pay players in the convulsive new world of the college game.

There’s no chance that he would have been cowed by the prospect that months later, Oregon State would be shaming WSU with its own first-year coach, a bouncy outlook by its fan base and an offense that has been – no exaggeration here – unbelievable.

But that’s where we’re at in mid-October, in the days before Oregon State, and a sellout crowd, hosts WSU. Oregon State, suddenly a darling of national media like the New York Times -- and WSU, which has scored five offensive touchdowns in 2026.

Oregon State, averaging 42 points a game, scored five touchdowns in the first 24 minutes last week against San Diego State.

Up front, let’s understand two things: Oregon State hired head coach JaMarcus Shephard on Nov. 28, five days before the early letters-of-intent signing period Dec. 3.

It was a full two weeks until Moore was named at WSU, owing to the fact Jimmy Rogers bolted the Cougars for Iowa State on Dec. 5 – the day the signing period closed. A two-week head start at a mercurial time in the off-season is considerable.

Second, one year is but a runway to where two programs ultimately might be going. The two jilted by the original Pac-12 have tended to leapfrog each other incrementally but generally have been of the same ilk.

Still, the real-time comparison between the two is nothing short of staggering. The Cougars can’t score; the Beavers can’t help but score. OSU’s offensive coordinator, Redmond, Ore. product Mitch Dahlen, is all the rage, termed “a dude” by Texas Tech head coach Joey McGuire in the New York Times. WSU’s offensive coordinator, Matt Miller, had his play-calling duties stripped by Moore a week ago.

Oregon State’s quarterback, Mercer transfer Braden Atkinson, has a 21-2 touchdown-interception ratio. WSU’s quarterback, Caden Pinnick, has headed an offense ranked No. 133 in the country (of 138), and has just been benched for redshirt freshman Owen Eshelman.

Where Washington State is a team in desperate search of playmakers, Oregon State has a show-stopper in Jesse Legree, a 5-10, 172-pound product of Baltimore who has 932 yards receiving, 12 touchdowns and a ridiculous 24.5-yards-per-catch average. Staying healthy, he stands a solid chance of joining a select handful of historic collegians who were consensus All-Americans as freshmen.

Oregon State isn’t suddenly awash in NIL dollars. Most of its success in a 4-2 start can be traced to the old-fashioned attributes of hard work, evaluation and coaching.

Shephard worked for Mike Leach and Kalen DeBoer, and his football general manager, Eron Hodges, was a cohort on DeBoer’s staff at Alabama. Hodges was familiar with Baltimore’s St. Frances Academy, a prep powerhouse in the sport, and followed up on Legree, who was widely overlooked because of his size. His few offers were for defense.

Oregon State surprised Legree with an offer on signing date and he arrived in January. Shephard has conducted tightly closed practices and virtually nobody outside knew of Legree’s emergence. You won’t find his name anywhere in preseason magazines.

You can’t say he’s flourished because of a Group-of-Six schedule. Legree debuted with 136 yards receiving against Houston and 240 against Texas Tech. His speed, ability to change direction and ball skills have left mouths agape around OSU.

“I’ve never seen that package at Oregon State,” said longtime Beaver radio play-by-play voice Mike Parker. “And we’ve had some athletic, dynamic guys, like (Jacquizz) Rodgers, (Brandin) Cooks and others.”

Meanwhile, Shephard wouldn’t hear of moral victories after two competitive losses against the Big 12 teams. When they got off the bus coming back to Corvallis after the 33-20 defeat at Houston, he told the Beavers bitingly, “Guys, we’re better than that.”

Atkinson, the quarterback, is from rural North Carolina by way of Mercer, the FCS school in Georgia. He visited Notre Dame and Syracuse but saw a path to early playing time at OSU, where he leads the nation in passing touchdowns and yardage (2,257). Early this week, he elicited this praise from Dahlen:

“When you’ve got a quarterback, you’ve got a chance,” said Dahlen. “And he’s the best in the country, in my opinion.”

Shephard, 43, has hit mostly the right notes in his 10 months at OSU. TV cameras have caught him waving his arms madly in exhortation of OSU students. Last week, he drove to nearby Sweet Home to address a high school football team that had lost a teammate.

Monday, referring to the sellout on tap in a few days for the invasion of the Cougars, he said, “I got tingles in my body just thinking about it. It’s time to go raise hell in Reser Stadium.”

Ironically, the task of slowing the OSU machine falls to WSU’s defensive coordinator, Trent Bray, the OSU alum who was fired last year as head coach in the middle of a Beaver season when nothing went right.

OSU went 2-10 then, enough to convince those covering the new Pac-12 that the Beavers were a hands-down pick to finish last in the new league.

That ain’t happening. And as Bray would surely tell you, the Cougars have some catching up to do.