EUGENE, Ore. — Vernon Adams threw for 366 yards and three touchdowns and No. 18 Oregon extended its winning streak to six games and closed out the regular season with a 52-42 victory Friday over the rival Oregon State Beavers in the 119th Civil War game.
Royce Freeman ran for 167 yards and two touchdowns for the Ducks (9-3, 7-2 Pac-12), who will now wait to see how the postseason bowl picture shakes out. Stanford will represent the Pac-12 North in the conference championship game.
Bralon Addison caught eight passes for 106 yards and scored four touchdowns for Oregon, including a 13-yard TD run.
It was the ninth straight loss for the Beavers (2-10, 0-9), the most since 1995 when they lost 10 in a row. Oregon State did not win a conference game for the first time since 1997.
The Beavers did not make it easy for the Ducks, mounting a late rally. Victor Bolden ran 78 yards on a punt return for the touchdown to narrow the score to 38-35 early in the fourth quarter. Adams answered on the next drive with a 4-yard touchdown pass to Addison.
Then Ryan Nall broke away for a 66-yard scoring run to draw the Beavers close once more with 7:05 to go. Again Adams answered with a 24-yard TD pass to Addison for the final margin.
Nall finished with a career-high 174 yards rushing and a score for the Beavers, who had averaged just 14.7 points during the losing streak going into Friday’s game.
Oregon State’s Seth Collins, who missed four games with a left knee injury, returned and ran for three touchdowns while sharing quarterback duties with first-time starter Marcus McMaryion.
Adams, a senior transfer from Eastern Washington, broke a finger in the opener against his former team and struggled before the Ducks sat him down. But his return coincides with Oregon’s six-game winning streak.
He’s thrown for more than 300 yards in four games.
Adams had faced the Beavers before, back in 2013 when Eastern Washington upset the then-No. 25 Beavers 49-46. He threw for four touchdowns and ran for two more and the Eagles became just the third FCS team to beat a ranked FBS team.
The mobile Collins, who still led the team in rushing despite his injury, scored on a 4-yard run to give the Beavers the early 7-0 lead. Oregon State coach Gary Andersen said last week said Collins would sit the rest of the season, but the true freshman quarterback returned to practice this week — at receiver.
Collins was the starter at QB at the start of the season, with redshirt freshman McMaryion serving as backup. Nick Mitchell, also a redshirt freshman, later played himself into the backup role.
Mitchell started while Collins was sidelined, but this week Andersen announced McMaryion would get his first career start, and hinted that Collins would play.
The Beavers’ early lead was short-lived and on the next series of the game Addison ran for a score to tie it.
Taj Griffin added a 14-yard touchdown run and Aidan Schnieder kicked a 25-yard field goal to extend the Ducks’ lead to 17-7.
Freeman rushed for a 3-yard touchdown before Adams’ 37-yard pass to Addison — which extended Oregon’s streak of games with at least one touchdown pass to 80. The TD gave the Ducks a 31-7 lead at the half.
The Beavers rebounded after the break with Collins running from 1-yard and 9-yards out for consecutive touchdowns.
After Freeman’s 19-yard scoring run made it 38-21 for the Ducks, McMaryion’s 6-yard scoring run closed the gap again for Oregon State and set up the final quarter.
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