The circus comes to Corvallis on Saturday.

No, not the Greatest Show on Earth, the kind filled with lions, tigers and bears. This circus is of the media variety, armed with notepads, tape recorders, television cameras and microphones, ready to catalogue every facet of the 12:30 p.m. Southern California-Oregon State football game at Reser Stadium.

OSU Sports Information Director Steve Fenk has issued about 40 credentials for the working media (including photographers). That’s double the amount issued for OSU’s previous big game, the Sept. 23 Pacific-10 Conference home opener against California.

“It’s always a big deal,” Fenk said of USC in town. “And I always get strange requests during the week, like ‘What’s the weather going to be like?’ or ‘Where can I park?’ and other weird media calls, just strange things.”

Five newspapers (Corvallis, Eugene, Salem, Portland 2) and the Associated Press have regular beat coverage of OSU football; the Bend paper attends most home games. Two or three reporters generally follow the opponent, so usually there’s plenty of room in the Reser Stadium press box to accommodate the stat crew, professional scouts, and others who show up on a hit-and-miss basis without too much crowding.

All that changes when the Trojans come to town, however. More scouts attend because USC has a slew of draftable players. USC Sports Information Director Tim Tessalone said staffers from five Southern California dailies have requested credentials, along with others in the broadcast media field.

Fenk said CBS Sportsline, USA Today and Reuters will also be here, along with a photographer from Sports Illustrated magazine.

Seventy credentials have been issued to FOX, which will televise the game nationally and do a mini-studio postgame show from the end zone. Requests to interview OSU coach Mike Riley and the players have doubled this week, to the point where Fenk is turning them down.

“That’s the biggest difference, the national exposure,” Fenk said.

Fenk said it was even crazier for the memorable 2004 “Fog Bowl” in USC’s previous trip to town. Those Trojans were the reigning AP national champions and featured superstars and future Heisman Trophy-winners Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush.

“There were people following (Leinart and Bush) around, making them their own show,” he said. “There were camera crews following them everywhere, so there’s probably a little less (activity) this time.”

Tessalone said the Los Angeles contingent might actually be a tad smaller than is customary because the Trojans haven’t been blowing opponents out with their customary regularity. Their last three wins were by a combined 19 points, not the 20- and 30-point margins of past seasons.

“We’re not getting quite the media zoo as in the past few years, especially with the national guys, at least not yet,” he said. “But if we can continue winning, it’ll heat up, I’m guessing.”

Tessalone said the 150-seat Memorial Coliseum press box is filled for every game and was expanded by 30 seats for the Sept. 16 contest against Nebraska. The extra seats will also be used for USC’s final three home games against California, Oregon and Notre Dame.

OSU can’t expand its press area, so with more out-of-town media on hand Fenk said he made some hard calls when issuing credentials.

“Some smaller papers in the state want to come because it’s USC, and I just can’t do it,” he said. “I can put some people on the sidelines, but I don’t want to crowd that. I can put some people on the photo deck but that gets pretty crowded. That’s the tough part. I hate saying no to people, but sometimes I have to.”

He’s seen a slew of entertainment figures on the Trojans’ sidelines in Los Angeles, but doesn’t expect any celebrity sightings here.

“You never know, with USC (stars) show up all over the place,” he said. “But you don’t see too many in Corvallis, because we have this reputation, that it rains all the time, that it’s hard to get to, that we’re out in the middle of nowhere.”