Nothing could dampen the Oregon celebration Saturday.
Not wind nor rain nor sleet — and all were present at Autzen Stadium as the Ducks beat Oregon State, 17-14, to claim sole ownership of the Pacific-10 Conference title.
“I’m going to wear it nice and pretty,” cornerback Rashad Bauman said of the championship ring he’ll receive.
After Bauman intercepted Jonathan Smith’s last collegiate pass and Joey Harrington took a knee, the clock ticked down to triple zeroes and the scoreboard flashed the words “Pac-10 Champs.”
Then came the fans, who didn’t wait the mandatory five minutes to rush the field after braving more than three hours of the nasty conditions that only December football can provide.
“You get a lot of fans who decide that the greatest thing in the world is to hit you on the head or the shoulder,” said Harrington, who completed 11-of-22 passes for 104 yards. “After 60 minutes of getting knocked around, it doesn’t feel so great.
“On the flip side of that, it was great to be engulfed in all that energy.”
Whether the first 10-win regular season in school history will be enough to move Oregon up in the Bowl Championship Series rankings will be discovered today when the new standings are released. The Ducks received help Saturday with the losses of Florida and Texas, and on Sunday, they moved up to third in both the Associated Press and coaches’ polls — the highest ranking in school history.
So the possibility remains for Oregon to climb to second in the final BCS rankings on Dec. 9 and play Miami in the Rose Bowl. If not, Oregon is set with the Fiesta Bowl and a date with Big 12 champion Colorado.
But it’s out of the Ducks’ hands now. For Oregon head coach Mike Bellotti, Saturday’s victory, close or otherwise, was all that mattered.
“We’ve come back from our one loss and won the undisputed Pac-10 championship,” Bellotti said. “I think we can play with anybody in the nation. A win is a win, whether it’s 56-55 or 17-14 or whatever.”

For three quarters, the only scoring by either side had come by way of field goals, as Oregon State took a 6-3 lead into the fourth quarter. And then, with 14:36 to play, Beavers punter Carl Tobey kicked it to Oregon punt returner Keenan Howry, and the game was changed.
Howry ran the ball up the middle and was never touched, sprinting 70 yards for the score and the 10-6 lead.
“Keenan’s punt return gave us the spark,” Harrington said. “I don’t know how to describe today. We just couldn’t get anything moving. And once Keenan hit that return, then everything picked up from there.”
Until that point, Harrington and the Oregon offense struggled. Eight of the Ducks’ first 10 offensive drives were five plays or less. The Oregon State defense had held Harrington to just 8-of-19 passing for 66 yards in the first three quarters.
“Defensively, we were all over the place,” Oregon State head coach Dennis Erickson said.
But on their first series of the fourth quarter, the Ducks were moving, and most of the time, it was with Maurice Morris leading the way. The senior tailback had his name called on 10 of the 13 plays, including the last one where he ran up the gut and through two Beaver defenders into the end zone. The eight-yard scoring run gave the Ducks the comfortable 17-6 lead with 4:40 to play and gave Morris the last of his 102 yards.
“Maurice was running harder than I’ve ever seen him run,” said senior fullback Josh Line, who got his first carry of the season. “He just would not be denied.”
But neither would the Beavers.
Smith led the Oregon State offense down the field and connected on a clutch 24-yard touchdown pass to Josh Hawkins. Then he hit Shawn Kintner for the two-point conversion to cut the margin to 17-14.
But after not completing the onside kick, the game appeared over. Oregon had the ball with less than two minutes to play. Then on a third-and-nine, Harrington rolled left and was hit from behind by Kyle Rosselle, who popped the ball loose.
The Beavers regained possession and had hope of a game-tying field goal. But Smith, on a third-and-17, looked right and fired a pass that ended up in Bauman’s hands and ended Oregon State’s season with a losing 5-6 record.
Beaver tailback Ken Simonton’s career came to a close with an 84-yard performance — falling 29 yards short of his fourth-straight 1,000-yard season. Oregon’s Onterrio Smith, who suffered a strained knee in the second quarter, picked up 30 yards to push his season total to 1,007; Smith is the ninth Duck to reach that mark.
Smith and the Ducks can now shoot for a first-ever 11-win season in a bowl game in Tempe, Ariz., or Pasadena, Calif.
“I’m sure there’s going to be a trivia question about who was the only Pac-10 team to win a championship twice in a row and not go to the Rose Bowl,” safety Keith Lewis said. “Nothing is going to add up to the Rose Bowl. But I’ll play anywhere to play with this bunch again.”