CORVALLIS —

Halftime on the field of Reser Stadium Saturday had all the usual trappings of a college football game — marching bands, cheerleaders, and cheesy giveaway contests.

Like at any game, some fans watched the festivities. Others headed to the concession stands for an overpriced hot dog.

But when many of the members of Oregon State’s 2000 team — which trounced Notre Dame in the 2001 Fiesta Bowl and is considered by many to be the best team in OSU history — walked out onto the field at halftime of a 31-28 win over Arizona State, that crowd turned its attention and showered the three dozen or so former Beaver players with affection saved for conquering heroes. One of those players was Mike Kuykendall, a former Bend High School all-state performer (he graduated in 1998), who played for the OSU black and orange from 1998 through 2002.

“It was nice to see that the fans still remember,” Kuykendall said outside the gates of Reser after his beloved Beavers inched past ASU.

“The fact that they remember and recognize us as one of THE best teams in (OSU) history is pretty cool.”

Kuykendall has been married for six years; his wife, Niki, is an elementary school teacher whom he met in Corvallis shortly after college.

Now a group manager with Jeld-Wen Inc., a Klamath Falls-based windows and doors maker, Kuykendall recently transferred from Klamath Falls to the company’s Stayton plant and moved to Albany.

Kuykendall was a 6-foot-6-inch, 336-pound offensive lineman at OSU on the Beavers’ program-transforming teams from 1998 through 2002. He was a backup tackle as a sophomore in 2000. But he did play in all 12 games, either on offense or special teams.

And his memories of that season, which he shared with me earlier this week, are as clear as Crater Lake.

“I just remember nobody really talking about, ‘Man, we have a chance to make a bowl game or the Rose Bowl or anything like that,’” Kuykendall recalled. “It wasn’t on the forefront of everybody’s mind.”

Oregon State started slowly that year, opening with a narrow 21-19 home win over Eastern Washington. The Beavers beat USC for the first time since 1967, but then a tough October loss at Washington, 33-30, seemed to take the steam out of the Beavers.

“Then we just kept winning and kept winning,” Kuykendall said. “It wasn’t really until the last couple of games of the season that we started being ranked, and we were up there in the low teens.”

The season ended with a Civil War showdown versus Oregon with a possible Rose Bowl berth on the line.

“I have never seen an atmosphere like that for a game before,” Kuykendall recounted. “It was bonkers. There was national TV, and they had that big camera that’s on the cables that floats over the stadium hooked up. And it was just intense.”

OSU won the game 23-13, but the Rose Bowl berth went to Washington. At 11-1 and ranked No. 5 in the coaches poll, the Beavers still had a chance to earn a berth in another Bowl Championship Series bowl.

Kuykendall was at a team dinner on the OSU campus during the BCS selection show when the team learned that it would be spending New Year’s Day 2001 in Arizona playing against Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl.

“Everybody just went crazy,” Kuykendall recalled.

And Oregon State went on to beat the Irish, 41-9, reaching heights previously thought impossible in Corvallis.

“It was kind of surreal, looking back on it,” Kuykendall said. “It seemed like it was the last four games of the year when we started to realize, ‘We have a chance for something really special here.’ Because earlier than that we didn’t really feel like world beaters. But at the end of the year, I think we could have beat any team in the country.”

Kuykendall would start on the offensive line for the Beavers in 2001 and 2002 under two coaches, Dennis Erickson (the current Arizona State coach) in 2001 and Mike Riley (the current OSU coach) in 2002. (Kuykendall also redshirted as a freshman in 1998.)

It’s a time that he remembers with great fondness to this day.

His older brother Joe, who also graduated from Bend High, played as a tight end for four years at OSU through 1998. And younger brother Patrick, who now lives in Redmond, served as a student manager for Oregon State football.

Mike Kuykendall still bleeds orange and black.

“Oh, yeah,” Kuykendall replied when asked whether he still follows Beaver football.

“Not in any official capacity,” he added. “I follow it as a fan. I’m any old fan just like anybody else.”

He got another chance Saturday to bask in the glow of Reser Stadium.

Many members of that 2000 OSU team — sans some notable exceptions like receivers Chad Ochocinco (formerly Johnson) and T.J. Houshmandzadeh, who are still collecting NFL paychecks, and former quarterback Jonathan Smith, who is the current offensive coordinator at the University of Montana — were introduced to the near-capacity crowd at Reser and honored with a barrage of highlights on the stadium’s jumbo video screen.

“It would have been nice to see some of those guys that were involved in those highlights there,” Kuykendall joked Saturday.

For Kuykendall, it was the first time he had been the field at Reser since the Civil War in 2002. Oregon State has changed since he last wore a Beaver uniform. A new indoor practice facility, weight room and east side of Reser Stadium have all been added since 2002.

The 2000 team got a chance this week to tour those facilities, many of them for the first time.

One could argue that the 2000 team helped build them all.

“It is neat to know that somewhere in those years (when Kuykendall played) there was a spark in this program that turned it around,” Kuykendall said. “Whether it was that season … obviously that had a lot to do with it. But there were a lot of good teams before. The ’98 team that came so close there (to achieve a winning record). The ’99 team that did. I was involved in all those, so being here in that era was pretty neat.”