Minutes after being beaten by Stanford, losing at Autzen Stadium for the first time in 23 home games and hearing all about how much they had lost, there emerged a glimmer of hope amid the downtrodden Oregon football team.
In the corner of the media room, flanked by three television cameras and numerous reporters with notepads ready, Oregon receiver Keenan Howry somehow saw the silver lining.
Yes, the national championship dream that had driven these Ducks through the rigors of the summer months and first weeks of the season had been dealt a serious blow.
Yes, the nation’s longest home-winning streak was halted.
And yes, the Pacific-10 Conference would now be tough to conquer with one loss and two daunting road games against Washington State and UCLA on the horizon.
But no way, Howry said with conviction, was this one loss on Oct. 20 going to end the Ducks’ hopes of playing somewhere on Jan. 1.
“We’re just going to fight as hard as we can to get back in the hunt and try not to let this one loss get us down,” Howry said. “We can’t let this one game knock off our confidence. If we win out, especially at UCLA, that’ll boost us up even more.”

Sure enough, the weeks since have all seemed to go in Oregon’s favor. The Ducks have won. Other teams have lost. And now Oregon is back in control of its destiny and can play the winner of the Big 12 Conference in the Fiesta Bowl if it beats the Bruins and the Beavers.
But those Bruins. Oh how they can be a pain in the Ducks’ tail. Oregon finally beat them last year at Autzen Stadium for its first win against UCLA since 1995, but the Ducks have yet to win at the Rose Bowl in that span.
Joey Harrington, who has said before that his dream was to someday play in the Jan. 1 Rose Bowl, has never played in Pasadena. In 1999, Harrington was the backup when quarterback A.J. Feeley led a dramatic last-minute drive that ended with Marshaun Tucker receiving a short pass and being stuffed less than a yard away from the end zone as time ran out.
Final score: UCLA-34 Oregon-29.
“That was a heartbreaker,” offensive lineman Ryan Schmid said. “We were so close. Tough loss to swallow. You never know, but that one yard might have cost us a spot in the Rose Bowl that year.”
Well, this year the Pac-10 champ goes to Tempe, Ariz., and unless the BCS spits out the Ducks in the first or second spots on Dec. 9 (they’re currently No. 6), this will be the one opportunity Oregon has to play in the renowned 91,000-plus seat stadium.
“It’s a chance to play on the biggest stage in college football,” Harrington said. “ABC, a sold out crowd. So yeah, it’s very exciting; on the other hand, it’s just like any other game.”
Hardly. You don’t sell out the Rose Bowl for a game not played on New Year’s Day. And the Ducks, with how much is riding on this win, need to play Saturday in that stadium as if the calendar has already been flipped to the year 2002.