Warning: The following column is based on an unsubstantiated story, one of those friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend type things. You have been warned.
Hey Joey … no more Taylor’s, buddy. Forget about Rennie’s Landing, and say “hasta la vista” to Rock ‘n’ Rodeo.
No more drinking for you, buddy. Time to play football.
You see, that friend-of-a-friend saw you throwing back a Full Sail at the bar the other night. My advice to you, buddy (you don’t mind if I call you “buddy”), is to lay off the booze for a while.
You see, Joey, you’ve got a job to do. Last year at this time, you could have drunk every night if you wanted to, because the Ducks weren’t even close to being ranked.
But now, no more Budweiser, buddy. Oregon is ranked up the wazoo and can’t afford to have a hung-over quarterback come Sept. 1.
That goes for you, too, Onterrio. Man, you came here from Tennessee and thought you could get away with some drunk driving? No more speeding, no more alcohol, no more nothing.
And don’t think you’re not accountable here, Coach B. You need to keep these boys in line. If I ran the Oregon football team, I would quarantine those boys in the University Inn, with shackles on their arms when they weren’t practicing, so they wouldn’t try to break free.
That’s what we’ve come to, isn’t it? Don’t tell me you don’t feel this hype. Don’t tell me the Sports Illustrated, the ESPN, The Associated Press all mean nothing. It’s different now.
You want respect? You got it, Ducks.
Don’t screw it up.
If you screw this up, forget about respect next year. Forget about ESPN calling you “the team to beat” in the Pacific-10 Conference. Forget about the 100-foot billboards.
It’s taken a while to build this. Coach B., you know that.
Before Coach B. except for that Rose Bowl year, of course, people used to go “Oregon? Where the heck is Oregon?”
Then you won a few choice games last year, and they went, “Oh, I get it, there’s Oregon.”
Then, you lost that little Civil War thing (did I even have to bring it up?), and they went, “Oh, I get it, Oregon STATE is where it’s at.”
So far this year, they’ve been going, “Civil War, man, that’s the thing. That’s the game to watch.”
And Joey goes, “You know it.”
“I feel like I didn’t put my team in a position to win that game last year,” Harrington said at Oregon’s media day Friday. “That’s what I want to do this year — put my team in position to win.”
Ah, I see a ray of optimism trying to muscle its way into this column.
Civil War? It’s at Autzen Stadium this year, where the Ducks have won 10 of 13 Civil Wars since 1975, including the last three. Wisconsin comes to Autzen as well, and you can believe the Ducks will be looking for a little revenge after last year’s close loss at Camp Randall.
“We lost a game [at Wisconsin] that we should have won,” tight end Justin Peelle said. “It’s been on our minds since then.”
Justin’s got the spirit that the rest of the team needs. Heck, the rest of the team already has it.
Call it a Duck thing. Perennial underdogs, always slighted, always out for revenge, never given enough respect. They got that (lack or respect) this year when Sports Illustrated picked the Beavers at No. 1.
If you thought last year’s Civil War had too much hype, just watch as it builds this year. And builds.
In fact, it’s going to build so much that you can’t drink anymore, Joey. You can’t smoke, you can’t eat fatty foods. You can’t even eat a peanut. Only salad.
And determination. You can eat determination for breakfast, Joey. I give you permission.
Because that’s what it’s going to take to be a Duck in 2001. Rose Bowl or bust, right?