The Sports Illustrated cover jinx has reared its ugly head once again on the state of Oregon.
Two seasons ago, Oregon State was selected as the preseason’s top team. The Beavers went on to lose their first game of the season and finished with a 5-6 record.
Now, after gracing the cover of the nation’s most-read sporting magazine following the Ducks’ victory against Michigan, Oregon is the lowly victim.
The Ducks were defeated 55-16 on Saturday by then-No. 21 Washington State, quieting the buzz about the Ducks that started just days before.
“Everybody is going to say ‘SI jinx,’ or whatever,” quarterback Kellen Clemens said after the game. “I don’t think it got to our heads, at least not to the players I talked to. We just got outplayed.”
The Sept. 29 issue focused on Oregon’s extravagant spending, and perhaps could have silenced those who have criticized the program for its promotion of the team.
The Ducks spent $250,000 to put a Joey Harrington billboard in New York City in 2001. After that came billboards of various players in California.
This year, Oregon has taken to using advertisements in USA Today to promote the team. Also, new uniforms and a state-of-the-art locker room have drawn criticism.
“Well, I don’t worry about the critics,” Oregon head coach Mike Bellotti said last week. “We’ve gotten more publicity — much more than we would have ever thought — by the ads in New York, and by our uniforms. That was three weeks worth of talk shows all across the nation.
“We made Sports Illustrated not on the merit of anything but our victories. That to me is more important to the players. We can talk about facilities and billboards and all those things, but the reality is, if you win football games, that is a solid type of representation.”
University President Dave Frohnmayer said the recognition gives newer students a sense of where they belong nationally.
“It’s exciting to give students a sense that they have a profile and that it really is national,” Frohnmayer said. “While we say that, and while it’s in our literature, and it’s true, sometimes the visible proof of it is the extra frosting on the cake.”
He stopped short of saying the cover would necessarily attract more students — at least on that merit alone — but said it emphasizes the “clean and ethical” program run by Bellotti and Athletics Director Bill Moos.
The cover marks the third time a current Oregon player or team has been highlighted by the magazine. Harrington appeared on the cover in the magazine’s college football preview issue in 2001, and legendary Oregon runner Steve Prefontaine graced it in 1970.