If you were looking at the football schedule over the summer, you might have seen Saturday’s game against Washington State as little more than a bye week – a chance for Oregon to fine-tune a few things and for the Duck reserves to get some playing time headed into a much bigger game at the Los Angeles Coliseum.
Turns out you were right, but it sure didn’t look that way a week ago.
On the heels of Oregon’s 37-32 loss to Boise State, many were questioning what the real ceiling for this team might be. Could Duck fans expect the team to contend for a Pacific-10 Conference title, or was it all just hype? Could any of the available quarterbacks run Chip Kelly’s offense effectively, or is it just too complicated for a first-year signal caller? Could the defense rebound from two shaky performances and regain some of its swagger?
And maybe most importantly, would an Oregon quarterback ever again escape the first quarter of a game intact?
But early on in Oregon’s 63-14 shellacking of the hapless Cougs, it was apparent that this team does have the talent to merit a place in the Pac-10 title discussion. Sophomore transfer quarterback Jeremiah Masoli indeed does have the chops to run Kelly’s spread. The defense created turnovers, pressured the quarterback and was, to put it in Oregon head coach Mike Bellotti-speak, “as advertised” in the preseason.
And perhaps most important, all three of Oregon’s young quarterbacks escaped Martin Stadium unscathed.
So Duck fans can drop the wailing, hand-wringing and teeth-gnashing and look ahead to a huge game next week against Southern California. Sure, it might not have the national championship implications that it would if both teams were still unbeaten, but this is still a huge game in terms of the balance of power in the Pac-10.
After losing in embarrassing fashion (this was no fluke, the Trojans were dominated) to the Oregon State Beavers on Thursday, the Trojans’ stroll through the conference schedule and into a BCS game now appears far less inevitable. The questions floating around the Trojan program this week are much like the questions that hovered over Oregon last week, concerning hype, heart and true talent level.
But the Beavers didn’t do the Ducks any favors, even if they did expose some flaws in the Trojan team. Any doubts that may have crept into the USC locker room will be overridden by the Trojans’ hunger to prove the doubters outside of the locker room wrong. If Oregon ever stood a chance of sneaking into town and catching USC napping, that chance is now null and void.
But should Oregon survive that initial wave of emotion from a hungry Trojan team on its home turf, those doubts will start to creep back in and Oregon could seize the opportunity. Oregon outranks USC offensively in every team category except pass efficiency (understandably, given Oregon’s recent quarterback issues), and if the Trojans couldn’t handle the diminutive Jacquizz Rogers, Oregon’s deep and talented backfield will give them fits.
Of course (turn north and shake your fist at this point), a win over USC won’t affect the polls now as it would have before the debacle in Corvallis, but I’m thinking Oregon’s best shot at a BCS bowl now lies through the conference title, not through the polls, and that road still goes through
the Coliseum.
A win over USC in Los Angeles would be a huge step in that direction, and would send notice to the rest of the country that the Pac-10 is a hell of a lot deeper than anyone thought.