They should have been playing on New Year's Day. And in any other decade, they would have been.
Over the past 60 years, Oregon State's 1957 football team has become the school's forgotten gridiron champion, rarely mentioned in the same breath as the Rose Bowl teams of 1941, 1956 and 1964, or the Fiesta Bowl team of 2000.
But six decades ago this past fall, Oregon State met all the criteria for appearing in the 1958 Rose Bowl – yet the Beavers had known from the start of the season they had no chance to participate in the game.