Prior to Oregon’s first game this year against Stanford back on Sept. 2, I published a column claiming that Oregon would win eight games this season.
Right about now, that prediction looks like it just might come true with Oregon sitting at 7-5 and headed to a yet-to-be-determined bowl game next month.
Yet, in that same column, I noted that, all things considered, if Oregon wins eight games, I’d chalk it up as a successful season.
With young corners, an inexperienced defensive line and huge shoes to fill across the board, I felt that Oregon would be lucky to win that amount of games.
But upon reflection, even if Oregon wins its final game and achieves that, this season still will certainly fall well short of memorability.
In one way, that’s a compliment to this Oregon team as so many stepped up early in the season and created great expectations for the remainder of the year.
Most notably, the inexperienced redshirt freshman corners, Jairus Byrd and Walter Thurmond, played admirably. Byrd was recently awarded Pacific-10 Conference co-freshman of the year.
And the defense, ravaged by injuries, relied heavily on senior leaders like Blair Phillips and J.D. Nelson, both named to All-Pac-10 teams, while the offense looked unstoppable and was exhilarating to watch.
So just when many began to entertain dreams of a Pac-10 title, and quarterback Dennis Dixon made an appearance on ESPNEWS after a huge win against Oklahoma, and people were starting to talk about Oregon, these Ducks were quick to show everyone that maybe, just maybe, this team was a little too youthful and realistically a few years away from meeting such grandiose expectations.
When you look back on this season, you’ll likely note all the “what-ifs” and “what-could-have-beens.” When added up, Oregon’s own mistakes accounted for 129 points this season, 42 percent of the total points the Ducks allowed.
Soon after that 4-0 start, reality hit home when the Ducks fell flat in what could have been the defining game at Cal. In a way, that game did become a defining moment and exposed the flaws that became so evident in turnover-marred losses at Washington State, USC and at home against Arizona – one of the usually sure victories for Oregon.
The Ducks ended the season with three straight losses after last Friday’s heartbreaking Civil War in Corvallis in a game that, like they had all season, the Ducks were done in by mistakes – mistakes like three missed field goals and an extra point.
The Ducks’ players talked about taking solace in the fact that the team never gave up against Oregon State – not after a 27-14 fourth-quarter deficit, not because of an anemic kicking game and not because of a late-season collapse when most fans had given up.
And after the way this season started, who would have thought that the team could ever take encouragement from a two-point loss in the Civil War?
Certainly, I didn’t.
And I didn’t expect that the Ducks would be sitting at this point in the season with seven wins while most their fans would be sitting with such an empty feeling, either.
[email protected]