Rose Bowl Showdown Is Program-Defining Game for Oregon Ducks
Alabama, Ohio State, Florida State and…Oregon? The College Football Playoff is like three blue bloods and two yellow shoes.
Nationally, when people think about Oregon, they think about fast pace, gimmicky plays, wild uniforms, highlighter-yellow socks and shoes, Nike money, outrageously posh facilities and a lot of wins out there in a far corner of the country, where games finish too late for the rest of the country to watch.
But for all those wins, Oregon doesn't have the fabled status of those other three schools—the history of national titles and iconic coaches, the automatic SportsCenter leads most weeks, the relevance even when the team's not in the Top 10 nationally. The Ducks aren't in that club yet. But they're close.
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That's why Oregon needs this Rose Bowl on Thursday against Florida State. In fact, this whole College Football Playoff means so much more to the Ducks than it does to the other teams.
For one great, defining moment—redefining, really—Oregon needs to beat a traditional power and win a national title. Then, the Ducks will have finally arrived among the national elite. For all they have done over the past several years—the comeback win over Michigan State, a Heisman Trophy, etc.—they still do not have a signature win.
As every high school kid knows, it takes forever to overcome your history, erase your big mistake, change your identity.
"Somebody asked me yesterday what it's like to be with the blue bloods," Oregon athletic director Rob Mullens told CBSSports.com's Dennis Dodd at the Heisman Trophy ceremony after Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota won the award. "We're very proud to be competing with the blue bloods. Someday maybe we'll be a blue blood."
It's just so hard to gain admittance to the club. We've seen worst-to-first teams in the pros, but they have drafts to help even things out. At this point, Oregon is a regional power, though it has pushed into the national mainstream with a Heisman and a coach who successfully jumped to the NFL. But the door into the club of college football elites usually only opens one way:
Out.
Just ask Nebraska. And the gatekeepers have been thinking about throwing out Michigan, too, unless it really can get Jim Harbaugh to leave the NFL. There hasn't been a first-time national championship winner since Florida won it in 1996. Of the titles won since then, three went to Alabama, two to Florida State and one to Ohio State.
What's different about Oregon football—and this is just my opinion from time spent there—is that while its fans want to win, not everyone there exactly wants the Ducks to be in the club. Eugene is still a hippie town in an area made up of folksy villages. The sports legend is a track hero, Steve Prefontaine. Oregon is sort of a family experience. And if the national college scene sees Oregon as an interloper, the people of Oregon see the national scene as the interloper to them.
Oregon has spent decades climbing the stepladder. Rich Brooks brought the Ducks out of the Toilet Bowl era, and then Mike Bellotti made them a fixture in bowl games. Then Chip Kelly, an outsider from New Hampshire, took Oregon up another level, and the fans were already a little uneasy about it.
Kelly took the Ducks to four straight BCS bowl games, though. Their bowl wins weren't over blue bloods, however; rather, they came against Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl and Kansas State in the Fiesta Bowl. When the Ducks played Ohio State in the Rose Bowl, it was an ugly loss.
They got so close four years ago, reaching the BCS title game and losing to Auburn, 22-19. But that looks closer in history books than it did in real time. Back then, Oregon was the gimmicky team running a goofy offense. In the title game, the Ducks faked a punt and ran fake reverses. The Ducks also had those ridiculous bright-yellow socks and shoes.
It just did not give the Ducks the look of a real powerhouse, especially in contrast to Auburn, which physically bullied Oregon.
History just takes so long to overcome. For Oregon, that means Nov. 19, 1983—the Toilet Bowl. On a horrible, rainy day, water was pouring down the aisles onto the field, making deep puddles on the sidelines. And in the middle of the field, one of the worst-played games ever took place.
Oregon 0, Oregon State 0. That was the final. There were 11 turnovers and four missed field goals. The coaches in the press box, because of the fog forming on the windows, had to open those windows and sit there while rain hit them sideways. In the final three minutes, the teams combined for three interceptions and a fumble.
That was a long time ago, but it's still stuck in the memories of longtime Oregon football fans, who also need a defining win to erase that game. For all the success the Ducks have had, there is still residue from back then that leads to doubts today.
Mark Helfrich, in his second year after replacing Kelly, is a local boy in Oregon. Last year, he told me that when he was growing up, he'd be out in the gravel parking lots at Oregon football games playing pickup games with his friends. So he has that Oregon-family feel.
But in Helfrich's first year, Oregon lost to Stanford and broke its run of BCS bowl games. And when Oregon lost to Arizona this year, even the locals were wondering if the local boy was in over his head.
That skepticism was the residue of the Toilet Bowl, to paint an ugly picture. So now, Oregon has its chance. Even one win—over Florida State—will go a long way. Two wins over the blue bloods would change everything.
Those victories would put Oregon in the club. And its past? It would be flushed away.
Greg Couch covers college football for Bleacher Report. He also writes for The New York Times and was formerly a scribe for FoxSports.com and the Chicago Sun-Times. Follow him on Twitter @gregcouch.
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