Inside the press conference room at the Casanova Center, there’s a small whiteboard along one wall. In red dry-erase marker, there’s a quote by Henry Ford written that sums up Oregon’s mindset right now:
 
“If you think you can, or you think you can’t, either way, you’re RIGHT! It’s all in the thinking.”
 
Right now, Oregon is thinking about the now. Not ahead to Dec. 4 when the dust settles and the team will know whether it’s playing in the Rose Bowl. Not back to 2007 when the Ducks — then ranked No. 2 in the country — lost in Tucson to the Arizona Wildcats 34-24 and Heisman candidate Dennis Dixon’s career ended.
 
Nope. These Ducks are completely focused on Saturday in Arizona, where ESPN College GameDay will be to document the most recent “big game” in the Pacific-10 Conference this year.
 
“We wouldn’t be in this situation if we didn’t take every game we played as the most important game we played that week,” head coach Chip Kelly said. “It’s come down to the stretch here, everything rides on this game against Arizona and our players wouldn’t want it any other way.”
 
Practice on Monday was a good indication of the mindset of the team. The team was loose and confident, and quarterback Jeremiah Masoli had what Kelly says may have been his best practice of the year.
 
The day finished with Masoli leading the offense down the field in a clutch time drill and setting it up for a last-second field goal from Morgan Flint. Kelly urged the defensive reserves onto the field and both teams formed a semi-circle around Flint while he set up for the kick. The Ducks were yelling and screaming and the music that plays constantly was bumped up a notch. But Flint — always the cool-customer — stepped up and nailed the 41-yard attempt.
 
“(The noise) doesn’t seem to bother him,” Kelly said of Flint. “He’s just got a great mentality…he’s been Mister Automatic for us.”
 
Kelly said it was all a part of making practices harder than games while still adding a little bit of fun into the grind that is day-to-day practices.
 
“I think it’s important that you play this game and you have some enthusiasm,” Kelly said. “I think we practice better than anybody but I think our players also have fun in practice. When you can have fun but also get a tremendous amount of work done, that is the key.”
 
Part of the atmosphere Kelly sets up in practice is the noise that he wants piped in. When he first arrived in Eugene, former head coach Mike Bellotti would have crowd noise play on the speakers. Kelly has switched to music because guys respond to it better, plus it gives them one more thing to try and block out because they know the songs that are being played.
 
“When we had crowd noise I always said it would be better with music because it seems like our guys get up a little bit,” Kelly said. “Just the concept is having noise. How they handle a distraction? Are they focusing on the song or can they just blot it out?”
 
Kelly did, however, that certain songs on the practice mix — which range from country to rap to classic rock to hip-hop — are worse than others. In particular, Kelly joked, “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor didn’t seem to get the competitive juices flowing as many might think.
 
“I talked to T.J. (Ward), and there are certain songs our guys seem to play harder on,” Kelly said with a smile. “There are a couple of songs that we need to get off the mix. We need to get that song off because we’re not getting the production we need while that song is playing.”
 
It was a light-hearted way to end the press conference, but everyone left the room knowing that under the smiles on Monday, Kelly was as focused as his team. It doesn’t matter if Oregon hasn’t been to the Rose Bowl in 15 years if it can’t beat Arizona on Saturday.
 
“15-year history and all that other stuff is irrelevant,” Kelly said. “We’ll talk about memories when the season is over.”


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