As Oregon State was lurching to a 39-14 loss Saturday, amid dwindling fans and pointed player post-game comments about teammates having checked out, something alluring was taking place in Oxford, Miss.

Hard by the world’s best tailgating spot, Washington State was giving fourth-ranked Ole Miss a devil of a time. Certainly, the thought of the Cougars wasn’t going to rile the Rebels to a fever pitch during a season diet that includes Georgia and LSU, but this was fetching nonetheless, a 32-point underdog leading late in the third quarter, and ultimately having an outside chance with the ball, down a field goal, on the game’s last possession.

If there were ever a definition for a moral victory, this was it.

There’s no column in the standings for that, but it’s worth assessing the two Pac-12 orphans midway through the 2025 season.

It’s a bizarro existence this year for WSU and OSU, one visiting Ole Miss and Virginia in mid-October, the other hosting Lafayette. This is the transition season for these two, when they’re biding time until the reinforcements arrive from the Mountain West – Boise State, Fresno State, etc., etc. – next season to form the new Pac-12.

All of it was brought about, as you know, by the 2023 crumbling of the old Pac-12 just before that season began. Amid the wreckage, the popular construct for the long-term, best-case scenario for the Castaways was this: Pick up the pieces, somehow stay competitive in the interim until the next round of TV negotiations at the end of the decade, and hope you get the right answer if another realignment takes place.

A piece of that equation, maybe a tiny slice, surely played a part in the decision last weekend to fire OSU coach Trent Bray after half a season of fruitless outcomes. You’re never on solid ground with an 0-7 record and grumbling near the surface, but big picture, it wasn’t a good look nationally for the Beavers, jettisoned from their longtime West Coast brethren only two years ago, and now, seemingly, dramatically unable to cope.

Taking the temperature both in Corvallis and Pullman this week – and it’s the definition of fluid – you’d have to say the Cougars are managing better than the Beavers.

Since the cataclysm of 2023, when Washington and Oregon departed the Pac-12 and the whole thing came crashing down, it has seemed like OSU and WSU have been sort of leapfrogging each other, if incrementally.

The Beavers got the jump in ’23. Jonathan Smith’s program had reached maturity, and when it came to Pullman in late September, it was 14th ranked. The Cougars finished off OSU to go 4-0, but while the Beavers forged ahead to a bowl game and an 8-5 record, WSU bid adieu to its century-old Pac-12 affiliation with a six-game losing streak and finished 5-7.

Smith saw the bold-faced handwriting on the wall and bolted Corvallis after that season, famously leaving his orange-and-black gear at the local Goodwill. Bray debuted with a 5-7 record in 2024. Meanwhile, Jake Dickert’s outfit had fully bloomed under quarterback John Mateer, and the Cougars were 8-1 in mid-November and meriting isolated mention as a rogue playoff contender.

They nosedived from there, finishing 8-5, but while the Beavers sat home, WSU landed in the Holiday Bowl and lost to Syracuse. This time, it was Dickert turning tail to Wake Forest, and his version of a trip to Goodwill was a tweet of him and his family in flight to Winston-Salem, with Pullman in his rearview mirror.

All this should have augured an edge to the Beavers in 2025. Its coach had settled in, and OSU had attracted quarterback Maalik Murphy from Duke for a reported $1.5 million. Up north, WSU’s Jimmy Rogers, imported from South Dakota State, was dealing with 70 new faces.

But the narrative got knocked kittywampus. Bray turned out to be a disaster, rough around the edges, spewing an F-bomb on a TV interview, seemingly the classic fine assistant coach in over his head in the big chair. On the other hand, while Rogers’ trip has hardly been seamless – especially in a 59-10 loss at North Texas – he has the Cougars at 3-3 ahead of a difficult test Saturday at Virginia. One of the wins was a blowout that gave San Diego State its only loss, another victory at Colorado State was by 17 points, same margin by which Washington thwarted the Rams.

It’s best not to draw any sweeping conclusions. The Cougars are facing the back end of consecutive cross-country road trips this week, and big picture, the belief is that OSU has raised more cash for the war chest that pays players.

But for now, at least WSU can say it’s in solid position to make a bowl game. After all, it has two games left with the Beavers.