Oregon State needed a change in perception. On his first day as head coach, JaMarcus Shephard kick-started that push.
The Oregon State Beavers have my attention after Tuesday’s introduction of newly-hired head coach JaMarcus Shephard.
That’s a disingenuous statement, though. The 2025 Beavers, who finished their season 2-10, had my attention all the way back in the spring when head coach Trent Bray’s second season at the helm began with optimism. By October, optimism turned to that “watching a slow car crash” sort of interest as Oregon State’s season crumbled and Bray was ousted from his alma mater.
As the pieces came together on Shephard’s hire, culminating in an hour-long introduction on Tuesday, the difference felt palpable.
By no means is this intended as a dig at Bray. Oregon State athletics director Scott Barnes hired him just four days after his predecessor, the now-unemployed head coach Jonathan Smith, jumped ship for Michigan State. Bray, the former Beavers linebacker and defensive coordinator, took on a nearly-impossible task: attempting to salvage a top-25 team’s roster in the midst of unprecedented conference realignment and the ever-shifting NIL landscape.
It’s a situation that only the sweatiest of “College Football 26” players covet. Bray tried and, with questionable-at-best staffing decisions and lackluster recruiting, he failed.
If Bray’s November 2023 hiring and introductory press conference in the Valley Football Center’s media room was a shotgun wedding; Shephard’s own, held in Reser Stadium’s lavish Coastal Club, was a royal coronation. I think Shephard — who I’ve learned quickly is as good of a quote as he is genuine, intelligent and passionate — wanted it to be exactly that.
Oregon State needed a change in perception. On his first day as head coach, Shephard kick-started that push.
Pairing academic excellence with football success
Of all that Shephard said, his comments about Oregon State as an academic magnet — and how it pertains to football — were some of the most striking. Shephard looked to one-half of Reser Stadium’s namesake, Pat Reser, to hammer home his point.
“Everyone else across the country looks at Oregon State as this blue-collar program,” Shephard said. “I don’t know that (Pat Reser) really thinks of it that way. She thinks of it as a program of excellence, a program that has standards and can reach excellence in all aspects of the university. And I feel the same sentiment, okay? We want to achieve excellence in everything we do…
“I believe this: how you do anything is how you do everything. So, if we’re excellent in the engineering department, if we’re excellent in the business department, we need to be excellent on that football field.”
There isn’t anything wrong with being a “blue-collar” program. The Beavers won 10 games under Jonathan Smith in 2022 with that sort of mentality. And under Shephard, Oregon State isn’t checking its hard hat at the door — just putting a new meal in its lunchpail. The program’s “aw, shucks”-iness, bred into it from years of middling-at-best seasons, steps aside for Shephard’s envisioned identity. One he saw first-hand during national-championship runs at Washington in 2023 and Alabama this year.
“These are really my goals as a football program,” Shephard said. “We will win the Pac-12 Championship and bowl game with class, integrity and academic excellence. That is what we will do here.”
Public perception only changes with internal reinvention.
Shephard to alumni: ‘get your butt back here’
For the latter half, Shephard started on the home front, saying he wants to reinvigorate Oregon State’s alumni base.
“Let me tell you right now, all the alumni, get your butt back here,” Shephard said with a grin stretched wide across his face. “I want you back here. I want you on the sidelines, I want you engaging with our players (and) I want you sitting in meetings… sitting in my office talking about your experience and how we can mirror that. Or, how we can enhance that experience for our current athletes.”
Shephard later told a story from his on-going time at Alabama and former Crimson Tide receiver Julio Jones. Shephard said that Jones, a 2011 first-round pick and five-time NFL all-pro, stood on the sidelines for a game in Tuscaloosa. Jones kept his distance from the Alabama receiving corps to avoid interfering. Shephard wanted the opposite.
“Julio Jones knows the (receiver) position better than I do, just so we’re clear on that,” Shephard joked.
Oregon State’s lack of football alumni presence at games is a running piece of frustration for the fan base. With less than a week on the job — he divulged he’d been hired on Thanksgiving Day — Shephard said he spoke with Beaver legends already, including running backs like Steven Jackson as well as James and Jacquizz Rodgers.
Brandin Cooks, the 2013 Biletnikoff Award winner and member of the 2025 search committee, offered his services as a coach. The seriousness of Cooks’ offer is flimsy at best, especially given his contract with the Buffalo Bills.
“I told him to go play as long as you possibly can and enjoy playing,” Shephard said. “But (Cooks) has been super valuable in just letting me know the culture of this program and what it looked like before and what they would like to see it look like going forward as alumni. So, I want to support that mission for them.”
Oregon State: the coaching farm
According to The Oregonian’s Ryan Clarke, Shephard looks to hire Alabama analyst Torrey Gill as the Beavers’ next wide receiver’s coach. Clarke reports that Shephard also plans to hire Alabama assistant quarterbacks coach Mitch Dahlen and associate player-personnel director Eron Hodges to his inaugural staff.
Dahlen, a native-Oregonian whose dad played for the Beavers, would become offensive coordinator if hired. Similarly, Hodges would become Oregon State’s general manager. The trio are but a fraction of Shephard’s imminent hires. As for the rest of the staff — defense, in particular — the new coach has names in mind and a vision for execution.
“I want the next defensive coordinator to be excited about training whoever the next guy is in the building,” Shephard said. “I believe in having a system where we’re going to be, basically, a farm system. Once someone decides to leave here — which, we hope they never leave, but it just happens from time to time — I want the next guy already in place and ready to go. I think that I’ve identified a candidate or two that’ll fit the mold.”
As far as personnel goes, Shephard harped on the importance of winning at the line of scrimmage. He called the offensive and defensive lines the “nucleus” of the team. In the transfer portal, Shephard said he and his forthcoming staff will lean on “prior relationships” to assemble 2026’s roster.
Much adieu about the general manager
Hodges’ potential hire is another perception shift, and a semantical unwinding, for the Shephard-era.
“That general manager role is very different across various places around the country,” Shephard said. “So, it was important to me because of how it’s looked at around the country when you’re working with student-athletes, as well as with their agents… So, I wanted to make sure that I had someone in that role instilled in our program.”
Hiring a general manager gives Oregon State a “streamlined way of funneling information”, Shephard added. He said that Oregon State is “set up perfectly” to compete in the NIL era and the university’s resources were a “non-issue” in his acceptance of the job.
In mid-October, following Bray’s dismissal, Barnes called the general manager position a “misnomer” that “just doesn’t fit” Oregon State’s prior regime. It wasn’t a popular comment amongst fans from a man with incredibly-vocal critics. It’s my understanding that Barnes’ comments pertained more to the hierarchical structure of an NFL franchise’s general manager than Oregon State’s want for a similar position on staff.
He addressed the expected, forthcoming hire — whomever it may be and whatever the job title is.
“(Shephard and I are) both working on what the actual job description is. This will be dedicated to football,” Barnes said. “We are committed to it, we’ve always been committed to the position… You think about a traditional NFL GM, the coach reports to a GM. This isn’t going to be that. But it’s going to be player-personnel focused, rev-share focused and getting those student-athletes signed.”
If Barnes wanted my input (I assure you he doesn’t), I’d say bite the bullet and call it a general manager.
And so, a new chapter of Oregon State football begins
How well will Oregon State perform in year one under Shephard? A magical 12-0 season? Perhaps a .500 record and a bowl game? A better-than-expected go of things that sees him whisked off to whatever impatient SEC team has an opening? I couldn’t tell you. But after sitting in a room with him for an hour, I think if anyone can turn Oregon State around, its Jamarcus Shephard
And I think Shephard agrees with me.
“I had to grind through this thing to become the head football coach at Oregon State University,” Shephard said, his intensity ramping up with every bead of sweat that ran down his face. “And I’m not going to stop grinding, okay? Alright? I’m not going to stop grinding, I’m going to outwork people… I’m going to outwork them every single day…
“You’ve got a fighter on your hands. I fought for everything that I have and I’ll continue to fight for the young men that are in this program (and) I’ll continue to fight for Oregon State University.”
