CORVALLIS, Ore. — Are you happy for them? Can you share in their joy? Will you root for the Ducks in the national championship game against Auburn?
Yes, I’m talking to you, Huskies, Cougars and Beavers fans. Do you feel any sense of Northwest loyalty?
Because Oregon is headed to the BCS championship contest, courtesy of a 37-20 victory Saturday over Oregon State that was as thorough as it was impressive. And with the win, the Ducks have added another notch on their gun of college football validation.
So, what do you think, Husky fans, knowing that Oregon is the region’s dominant program and that nothing about that will change in the foreseeable future?
Sure, there’s plenty for their rivals to dislike about the Ducks. Numerous players met the acquaintance of law enforcement during this past offseason; Oregon’s fans have a reputation for blurring the line between passionate and obnoxious; and there’s a perception that Phil Knight and his money deserve most of the credit for the program’s success.
“When I started getting involved with the program, we were just five years removed from a 0-0 tie with Oregon State,” the Nike founder said Saturday, when approached by reporters while he watched from the back of the postgame interview room.
And when did Oregon’s Godfather begin to envision that the program could reach this point?
“1959,” he joked. “We went to the Rose Bowl that year.”
Knight was off by a season. The Ducks went to Pasadena the previous year.
But he can be forgiven the oversight in the middle of Saturday’s pandemonium. Once upon a time, the very notion of the Ducks competing for a national title in football would have been absurd.
Yet in the early 1990s, Oregon built a new facility housing athletic offices, locker rooms and weight rooms. Then it created an indoor practice facility. Then it built a multimillion dollar football locker room. Then it constructed a privately funded academic center for athletes that is so fancy the school won’t reveal how much it cost.
It’s no coincidence that all of those milestones will culminate in Oregon playing for the BCS championship on Jan. 10.
Yet to focus on those things, as the critics are wont to do, is to ignore the entertaining efficiency with which Oregon plays the game. It is called the Blur Offense, and yet Blitzkrieg likely would be a more appropriate moniker for the ruthlessness of the attack.
The Ducks rushed for 346 yards against the Beavers. They limited Oregon State’s Jacquizz Rodgers to no runs of longer than 13 yards. They won by at least 17 points for the 10th time in 12 games.
Think about that last one for a second. And then consider that Southern California’s much-lauded 2004 national champions won five games by 11 points or fewer.
And when Oregon held a 16-7 lead and faced a fourth-and-3 on its own 28-yard line midway through the third quarter Saturday, it pulled off a fake punt that saw Michael Clay run up the middle for 64 yards.
If you blink for a second against these Ducks, they’ll steal your lunch money and start dating your girlfriend.
“These aren’t things we just crazily dial up,” coach Chip Kelly said, referencing the fake punt and a surprise onside kick earlier in the season against Stanford. “These are things we talk about and practice.”
Oregon manages to combine cold productivity with brilliant innovation. And its brand of football brings to mind an old commercial: “We’ll sell you the whole seat, but you’ll only need the edge.”
What’s not to like about that?
Greg Jayne is Sports editor of The Columbian. He can be reached at 360-735-4531, or by e-mail at greg.jayne@columbian.com. To read his blog, go to columbian.com/weblogs/GregJayne
