“USC, Oregon and Washington,” the Washington State offensive player said as he prepared to leave on Saturday night. “Those are our Super Bowls.”
There were more important things in the grand scheme of life to be discussed than Oregon’s 43-23 victory over the Cougars in Pullman on Saturday night, so that topic was largely avoided. Every so often though, it would slip.
The Washington State player, who helped the Cougars gash the Ducks’ defense for 336 total yards, was succinct and honest. He felt as though his team did not fully rise to the occasion. He felt that several mistakes doomed WSU.
He felt that Washington State should have won the football game.
So did many of the 24,768 fans scattered around Martin Stadium on Saturday. The Cougars had a precise game plan — run to set up the pass, control the clock, take away LaMichael James on the ground at all costs — and executed it well enough to take a 14-8 first-quarter lead.
The Ducks, now the nation’s second-ranked team, didn’t appear to belong on the same field for much of the game with an opportunistic Washington State squad. The offense never found its rhythm. Defensive fundamentals were lost to big gain after big gain. Special teams mistakes left numerous points off the board. Even the play calls seemed overly conservative (save for an opening reverse and swinging-gate two-point conversion) and ineffective.
Anthony Carpenter’s special teams tackle of Kenjon Barner in the first quarter did cast a pall over the game that Oregon fans could not shake. The sight of Barner lying motionless on the ground, one week after Stanford’s Chris Owusu was knocked unconscious by Javes Lewis, was upsetting for all involved. The game appeared to change emotionally.
(An aside: There really ought to be better policing of the big hits in college football games. Hits like the one that knocked Barner out on Saturday are going to happen. Football — and padding — allows for this. But with recent links to football-related head injuries and lasting brain trauma, hits have to be taken more seriously in general.
The collegiate ranks are fertile with grassroots movements, from offensive schemes to defensive schemes to uniforms to traditions. Improved treatment of injuries from major collisions will find its share of supporters. College football commissioners and administrators should get out in front of the issue before a death happens on the field.
The fans at Martin Stadium feared for the worst when Barner fell to the ground. We’re not too far away, they said, from the death of a player as the result of a hit. May we never see that day come.)
Anyway. What happened again? Right, a 20-point win in Pullman, something that eight years ago would have been a major cause for celebration. In 2010, it was greeted with yawns, criticisms and growing calls for head coach Chip Kelly to fire defensive coordinator Nick Aliotti.
Such is life in Eugene these days.
I have always enjoyed the Oregon fan base’s cavalier attitude toward its football team, imbued with a sense of boundless optimism. Suffice it to say, that optimism needs to be checked regularly for perspective to creep in. Saturday’s contest did just that.
What many thought was the second-easiest team on the schedule (sorry Portland State), may have played the Ducks tougher than anyone else. Tennessee could not keep up in the fourth quarter, Arizona State had seven turnovers and even Stanford began to show cracks in the foundation.
Washington State isn’t perfect, but by no means were Cougars players in over their heads. They knew what to do, and they almost made it happen.
The WSU offensive player knew that, and the nation — if it paid attention — did also. Oregon can be beaten. When and where it happens — if it does at all — depends on how the Ducks want to treat the game in question, and how sharp their preparation is.
Six conference games remain. Six Super Bowls for opposing teams. Who doesn’t want a defeat of No. 2 on the resume?
The Ducks have clinched bowl eligibility (remember when that used to be important?) and are in line, sometime after fall quarter, for a seventh Super Bowl. That one, like the six preceding it, is for everything.
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