Amid the postgame celebration from Oregon’s Holiday Bowl victory over Texas on Dec. 29, 2000, there were two profound emotions.
One, there was a great sense of accomplishment for that team, having recorded a school-record 10 wins and capping off a season that also included a Pacific-10 Conference co-championship.
But in addition, for the players who would return the following season, there was the anticipation of taking Oregon football to the next level — a level that not only included winning the Pac-10 title outright but also playing for the national championship.
“Our goal will be to play for it all next year,” Steve Smith said then. “We’ll shoot for it and see what happens. It’s going to be exciting to see if we can do better than we did this year.”
The expectations were high, but they reached unprecedented heights in June when the Oregon football program publicly introduced itself to the rest of the nation.
The Ducks’ entrance into the national spotlight came in the form of the 100-foot billboard featuring Joey Harrington in New York City. The excuse for the extravagance was to promote the senior quarterback for the Heisman Trophy.
A main reason for the $250,000 billboard, paid for by private donors, was to let the country know that something special was brewing in Eugene. Same for the billboards of Rashad Bauman in San Francisco and Maurice Morris in Los Angeles.
“It’s not as much risk-taking as it is investing for the future,” Oregon head coach Mike Bellotti said.
The investment in Harrington’s billboard could have easily backfired if the Ducks didn’t live up to the hype. And that hype also included being the favorite to win the Pac-10, being ranked No. 7 in preseason polls and having Harrington splashed across the cover of an August Sports Illustrated issue with Oregon State’s Ken Simonton.
But somehow, these Ducks thrived under the pressure.
Close wins over Wisconsin and USC highlighted their 6-0 start. And after the 49-42 loss to Stanford on Homecoming weekend, in a defeat that ended the nation’s longest home-winning streak, the Ducks picked themselves up with the motto handed down by Bellotti: “We can’t let Stanford beat us twice.”
They didn’t. A thrilling win at Washington State followed, most memorable for Onterrio Smith’s school-record 285 yards rushing. Bellotti called the relationship between Smith and starting tailback Morris this season as “one of the greatest things I’ve seen in sports.”
“Mo could have easily been selfish and had an attitude about the whole situation,” Smith said. “But that’s not Mo. Me and him grew to be best friends.”
Two weeks after the visit to Pullman came another nail-biting victory, this time a 21-20 squeaker against UCLA in Pasadena. A three-week layoff then built up a Civil War that would be played in a downpour fitting for December football. Oregon won, 17-14, and thus captured sole possession of the Pac-10 crown.
In the month leading up to the Fiesta Bowl, Harrington flew back to New York as a Heisman Trophy finalist, having lived up to the expectations of the billboard. He finished a distant fourth in the balloting, but would later put on a Heisman-worthy performance in the Fiesta Bowl.
Harrington’s four touchdown passes highlighted Oregon’s 38-16 win over Colorado on New Year’s Day to give the Ducks their first-ever 11-win season and set up the possibility of sharing the national championship.
Even though Miami went on to claim sole ownership of the title, a No. 2 final ranking and a convincing Fiesta Bowl win was enough to satisfy Bellotti, who admitted that with of all the preseason hype, this felt like the longest season of his career.
“To live up to (the hype) is by far the most pleasing thing as a coach,” Bellotti said. “It’s like a proud parent seeing his child develop and reach his potential.”
And just because household names like Harrington, Bauman, Morris and Justin Peelle depart, that doesn’t mean Oregon will stop thinking big.
“We’ll continue to stay initiative,” Oregon Athletic Director Bill Moos said. “We’ll continue to invest in our success. We won’t rest on our laurels.
“We’ll have some new surprises.”
The immediate question to ponder is how Oregon can possibly top a season like this in terms of the play on the field and the marketing off of it?
But as Oregon football has shown lately, it’s wise to wait and see first, and ask questions later.