5 worst Oregon State football head coaching hires of all-time

No. 1: Joe Avezzano (1980-84)

It's always tricky when trying to gauge if someone will succeed in his first stint as a head coach. That's what Oregon State decided to find out when hiring Joe Avezzano to run its program for the 1980 season. That move didn't pay off at all.

Prior to arriving in Corvallis, Avezzano was an assistant at Florida State, Iowa State, Pittsburgh, and Tennessee. However, he had never been a head coach at any level of the sport.

So why give an inexperienced head coach the task of running one of the most downtrodden programs in American in the middle of that program's darkest stretch? In hindsight, that move made no sense.

Amazingly, Avezzano managed to string together two separate streaks of 14 straight losses. What's more, those streaks were only separated by a single win, a comeback victory over mighty Fresno State. But to take that even a step further, the second streak was broken not by a win but by a 14-14 tie with Washington State. After that, OSU would lose four more games meaning he was two eyelashes away from losing 34 straight games.

That type of futility is hard to fathom. Overall, Avezzano would go on to a 6-47-2 record in his only stint as a college head coach.

Given that level of futility, it is amazing that Avezzano kept his job for as long as he did. Some believe his gregarious personality endeared him to those in power at Oregon State and that bought him some time. However, the end result is that he will go down as the worst coach in Oregon State football history.