Oregon State won more than a double overtime football game Saturday night in Reser Stadium.

The Beavers finished the weekend by landing their latest class of 2025 recruit, tight end Logan Knapp.

The 6-foot-6, 230-pound senior from Concord, California made his commitment while on a visit to Oregon State this weekend. Knapp committed earlier this summer to Wyoming, but changed his mind while at OSU this weekend.

Oregon State made an offer to the Clayton Valley Charter standout on Sept. 29. Through five games this season, Knapp has 12 receptions for 178 yards and three touchdowns.

Knapp had at least 10 college offers, including Washington State, San Diego State and Wyoming.

Knapp is the 13th player committed to OSU’s 2025 recruiting class, and the second tight end, joining Cody Siegner of Crane. The early signing period is Dec. 4-6.

–Nick Daschel can be reached at 360-607-4824, ndaschel@oregonian.com or @nickdaschel.

Our journalism needs your support. Subscribe today to OregonLive.com.

According to Action Network’s consensus lines, the Buckeyes are a 3.5-point favorite against the Ducks in the highly-anticipated matchup between the Big Ten elite. The consensus total is set at 55 points.

The Buckeyes are 3-2 against the spread this season but have covered in three of their last four games, with the lone exception coming in their 49-14 win over Marshall in which they were a 40-point favorite. The over is also 3-2 in Ohio State games, however, the under has hit in each of the Buckeyes’ last two games — both coming against Big Ten opponents. 

Ohio State is 9-1 against Oregon all-time, including a 42-20 victory over the Ducks in the 2015 College Football Playoff National Championship. However, the Ducks have the last laugh in the matchup, taking down the Buckeyes 35-28 at Ohio Stadium in 2021. 

The Buckeyes and Ducks kick off at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday. The game will be televised on NBC.

As I have said before, journalists work behind the scenes every day to lobby for release of public information. That came into sharp relief recently when Oregon delayed publishing school test scores.

The reason cited by the Department of Education was hard to argue with: The state said it wanted to make the scores more transparent and easier to digest.

“The change comes after The Oregonian/OregonLive reported on a national study that ranked Oregon among the worst states in the country for student achievement transparency,” education reporter Julia Silverman wrote.

But skeptical journalists also wondered whether the delay was to give government spinmeisters a bit more time to soften the blow of bad results. And the planned release on a Friday raised eyebrows further.

Lynne Terry, editor of the Oregon Capital Chronicle, flagged the issue for other Oregon journalists.

The “Friday news dump” is a tried-and-true tactic to bury news on a day (better yet a Friday afternoon or evening) when newsrooms are slammed wrapping up the workweek. And follow-up articles over the weekend are less likely because of lighter newsroom staffing. By Monday, interest fades as new storylines emerge.

The dropping of important information on Fridays has been around as long as there have been people paid to manage the release of bad news.

Marc Siegel, Education Department spokesperson, denies that was the intent. “That idea never came up. ODE chose Friday to give journalists more time to review, ask clarifying questions and write about a very large volume of data and ensure the data are accessible to the public and press.”

As far as Oregon test scores, a short embargo is typical for complicated data sets.

“I have been covering test score data release in Oregon for 27 years,” said Betsy Hammond, longtime education editor at The Oregonian/OregonLive. “We have always gotten the data on an embargoed basis with about three days to parse it before we are allowed to make it public. …

“In my experience, having three days to examine and analyze the data and ask school districts questions has helped our newsroom and others avoid mistakes and provide accurate contextualized information to help readers understand what’s there.”

She and Silverman agreed, however, that the Friday release was problematic. Test scores have routinely been released on Thursdays, three days after journalists receive them under embargo. Keep in mind the tests were given last spring.

After hearing of the unexpected delay, journalists from the Salem Reporter, Oregon Capital Chronicle, Oregon Public Broadcasting and The Oregonian/OregonLive wrote to the director of the Education Department, Charlene Williams, and copied their concerns to the office of Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek.

Citing public records law, the letter noted timely release was required. Also, “embargoing public information until a Friday is a common tactic to limit the dissemination of that information to the widest audience possible,” the letter said. “As journalists, our job is to help the public understand a wide variety of issues, including public education. Releasing information near a weekend, when it is commonly known people consume less news, will from our perspective limit transparency.”

Ryan Haas, managing editor at OPB, took the lead in drafting the letter. The Salem Reporter’s Rachel Alexander, who had filed the records request, signed on along with Hammond and Terry.

Kotek’s office said the initial delay was solely “to ensure the data was more accessible and comprehensible to the press and public.” Upon learning of the media’s public records request, the governor’s office asked the department to move up the release time.

By Monday, the Department of Education said it would release the information on Thursday, as usual. And indeed, the news was bad.

Silverman had noted it was difficult for people to compare school performance over time, from before the COVID-19 pandemic to afterward. Comparing test results for each school or district involved finding data points in multiple large spreadsheets.

That remains the case (though Siegel said more data would soon be available).

Even with the extra time, the data released Thursday is not easy to parse for parents. Comparing the new scores to those from just before and after the pandemic requires locating and downloading at least six separate Excel files from the state’s website.

The Oregonian/OregonLive to the rescue. In order to add clarity, data specialist Mark Friesen jumped in to create data visualizations showing pre- and post-pandemic performance trends for every school in our database, found at schools.oregonlive.com.

Readers can compare test scores in 2018 to the current scores. This helps pinpoint learning losses during the pandemic.

We hope readers find it informative.