All’s quiet on the Civil War front.
A little too quiet.
If you didn’t know any better, you’d think this was just another week.
“For me, it’s just a ballgame,” said Oregon junior linebacker Kevin Mitchell, who hails from Orange, Calif. “I don’t buy into the whole
rivalry stuff.”
Are you kidding? It’s Civil War week. No war of words? No trash talking?
Anyone?
“You just have to make sure they can’t take a line here, a line there and a line from somewhere else and make it into a quote. You just have to be careful,” Oregon State senior guard Mike Kuykendall told the Corvallis Gazette-Times. “We don’t want to give them an extra motivation. There’s enough motivation with the game, so we don’t need to give them anything extra.”
But that doesn’t mean the Ducks and Beaver like each other now, does it?
“I’m sure once the game starts, all the politeness will be thrown out the window,” Duck linebacker David Moretti said. “That’s all just window dressing right now. We’re always urged not to do the trash talking, especially to the media.
“We want to do the talking with our pads.”
That hasn’t been the case in the past few weeks.
The lack of traditional trash talk that surrounds this year’s Civil War can be attributed to the absence of Oregon and Oregon State’s best jabbers. Duck safety Keith Lewis, who’s never shied away from controversial comments, has been banned from media interviews after telling a Seattle radio station two weeks ago that Washington quarterback Cody Pickett was “overrated.”
Similarly, Oregon State linebacker Richard Siegler, always eager to throw in a quick jab about his opponent, was not one of seven Beavers selected by head coach Dennis Erickson to talk to the press this week. In the week leading up to Oregon State’s loss to Washington on Nov. 9, Siegler mocked the Huskies, who at the time had lost three straight.
Lewis and Siegler paid for their comments, and the Ducks and Beavers don’t want to make the same mistake again. Washington, meanwhile, has turned its season around because of the bulletin-board material.
“It seems like ever since Siegler called us out, that our team has really decided to flex its muscle,” Washington’s Elliott Zajac told The Seattle Times earlier this week. “Since that comment, it seems everybody has been on the same page, putting a lot more into practice and playing a lot harder.”
As much as they’re not saying, the Ducks and Beavers are aware of what’s at stake Saturday in Corvallis.
“It’s the biggest game of the year,” Oregon head coach Mike Bellotti said. “For one, it’s the last game of the year. Two, because it’s for all the marbles, in a sense. It’s the in-state rivalry, and we’re playing for a
better bowl game.
“We have a lot to play for.”
And there is the bowl seeding at stake. With four teams tied for fifth in the Pacific-10 Conference, including Oregon and Oregon State, another loss could be detrimental.
Then, of course, there’s pride, and bragging rights for the next year.
“Growing up in Oregon, it gives you a better understanding of what’s going on,” said Ducks fullback Matt Floberg, a Portland native. “You’re either a Beaver or a Duck. There’s no in between.”