Oregon Ducks Found Footage: The Journey to the 1995 Rose Bowl

While gearing up for the kickoff to the 2010 college football season this Saturday, I ran across this highlight footage of the 1994 Oregon Ducks' epic journey to the 1995 Rose Bowl.

Edited for length, this video shows some of the best plays from each of Oregon's Pac-10 games from the 1994 season, including "The Pick" of Damon Huard by Kenny Wheaton in the final moments of Oregon's conference match against the rival Washington Huskies that is shown to this day on Autzen Stadium's "DuckVision" scoreboard prior to each home game.

The brief reliving (and reminding) of that moment never fails to bring the already deafening crowd at Autzen to a frenzy right before kickoff.

This is a rare compilation of vintage 1994 Duck football footage that has only been seen by a few select alumni for one particular fund raising event.

There were a couple random scenes with Rose Bowl Hall-of-famer Danny O'Neil, Mike Bellotti, and Nick Aiotti looking directly into the camera and asking for "support" (which I'm guessing means "money" and not me yelling "OOOOOOOOhhh!" a little louder at home games) that I edited out for this presentation, so I suppose it's worth mentioning, in the spirit of full disclosure, that this clip has been edited for both duration and dignity.

So without further ado, here's a little blast from the past that I hope you'll enjoy while you countdown to Saturday:

The '94 season eventually ended with the Ducks being crowned champions of the Pac-10 conference and pitted against a Kerry Collins and Ki-Jana Carter-led Penn State team in the 1995 Rose Bowl in Pasadena.

Though that hard-fought match against Joe Paterno's No. 2 ranked squad ended in a 38-20 defeat for the Ducks, the 1994 season will be remembered by fans as a lesson in perseverance, and proof that a tough 3-3 start is no reason to stop fighting, or even to give up on an epic trip to the "The Granddaddy of Them All."

The Oregon Ducks take on the New Mexico Lobos at Autzen Stadium at 12:30 PST this Saturday, September 4.

The video is a private U of O alumni production and was narrated by Portland, OR voice actor Stephen J. Caldwell.