BCS Rankings Week 12: Oregon Ducks Will Find Redeption for LSU Loss

The Oregon Ducks will be redeemed from their Week 1 loss to the now No.1 ranked LSU Tigers, and it was their win over the Stanford Cardinal that makes it all possible.

This was a game that they needed, and they went out and proved that anybody who has doubted them was wrong.

True, perhaps the Ducks aren't national championship contenders, but the truth of the matter is that they are still one of the best teams in the nation.

They still believe they can be the best.

They can outscore anybody, besides LSU apparently, and it's their offense that will keep them rolling all the way to a one-loss season.

In fact, they may still find themselves in the national championship conversation, according to Thayer Evans off FoxSports.com:

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Not that Oregon can forget its season-opening 40-27 loss against LSU at Cowboys Stadium, one in which it had four turnovers. It’s the Ducks’ lone defeat this season.

But even though Saturday’s win made Oregon the team to beat to represent the Pac-12’s North Division in the conference’s inaugural championship game, the Ducks were already talking about a rematch against top-ranked LSU before they had even exited Stanford Stadium’s soggy and overgrown field.

They weren’t talking about the triumph being the Ducks’ first road victory against a top-five team, or that they had ended Stanford’s nation-best, 17-game winning streak or damaged the Heisman Trophy campaign of Cardinal quarterback Andrew Luck, who had three turnovers.

“We want them again,” Ducks wide receiver Rahsaan Vaughn said of LSU.

As unlikely as that possibility once seemed just more than two months ago, there’s now at least a chance it could happen with help from other teams.

But on a day on which two teams in the top five of the BCS lost, Oregon crept back into the national championship chase on the heels of a dominating performance — one that reminded college football that the Ducks still have almost all of their playmakers from a team that lost on the final play of last season’s BCS title game.

“I feel like the whole world is sleeping on us,” freshman tailback De'Anthony Thomas said. “We’re the real deal.”

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The Ducks are the real deal, and when all is said and done and the new BCS rankings come out there will be proof of that.

With their win over previously No. 4 Stanford, and No. 5 Boise State losing, I expect the Ducks are going to find themselves moving all the way up to four behind one-loss Alabama.

Ironic that both of their losses have come against the dominant LSU Tigers.

In the end, one of them just may get a shot at LSU in the national championship, but they are going to need a little bit of help from some of their friends in the Big 12, mainly Oklahoma.

Both teams are hoping for redemption, and perhaps one of them will get it.

Either way, Oregon is right where they want to be.