Call PETA. Oregon cruel to Cougars.

This may be my favorite uni combo: The yellow and black "Killer Bee" look.

Kenjon Barner wears it well as he makes Coug player's job difficult.

[Cruel. Inhumane. Unfair. One-sided. Oppressive. Heartless. Evil.

No, I'm not a Neo-Conservative griping about Obama. I'm talking about the way the Ducks treated the Cougars Saturday night. Washington State is hurting. They're young and inexperienced. And Oregon didn't care.
Actually I take that back. They showed compassion after the first half when 42 of their 52 points were already in the books and sat their starters down. After that, the Cougs just wanted the game to end.

If you want to catch a rundown of the game itself, check the media links on the left, or click this particularly good summary from Jason Vondersmith of the Portland Tribune: http://www.portlandtribune.com/sports/story.php?story_id=125462942175246800

Ed Dickson, seen here removing pesky obstacle, broke Josh Wilcox's record for Oregon career tight end receptions.
Both teams, for opposite reasons, would do well to forget about this game and move on. The following from John Canzano of the Oregonian is about the future. You can divide the rest of this season into a four-game stretch followed by a three-game stretch. As Canzano explains it, if the Ducks don't do well over the next four games, the final three games aren't nearly as relevant.]

Canzano: Oregon reaches its moment of truth
By John Canzano, The Oregonian
October 03, 2009, 10:15PM

EUGENE - There was no back slapping. No cheering. No movement. Or sound. If you'd have stood in the doorway of the visiting athletic director's box at the top level of Autzen Stadium on Saturday evening you'd have seen six frozen-still humans, just standing and staring out the window at the field below. [Sounds like the perfect time to step inside the door, blast an aerosol horn and shout, "ARE WE HAVING FUN, YET?!" ]

Welcome to the long wait for Washington State basketball season to start.

Oregon beat the Cougars football team 52-6 on Saturday.

The Cougars ran as fast as they could, hit with all their might and they jumped on the pile when the pile was there to jump on. They tried. Bless them. And maybe the temptation today is to examine what went down and discuss the stark disparity in college football between a program and a project. But if we did we'd be looking the wrong direction in the standings, wouldn't we?

Make no mistake, Saturday mattered for the Ducks. But only because USC beat California 30-3, Washington lost to Notre Dame in overtime and Stanford won again behind an imposing running game.

Oregon's next four games, and not the back-alley whipping it dealt WSU, will determine whether this season goes down as special or simply goes down.

Coach Chip Kelly's team has road games at UCLA next week, and at Washington (Oct. 24). Both are dicey. Then it's USC at Autzen (Oct. 31), which feels like a bowl game. And then the Ducks go to Stanford, which is when No. 9 (as in jersey number, and lives) might be back from his "Double Secret" suspension. [Hopefully they can beat Stanford by TKO.]

There are hackers. And there are non-hackers. Maybe you've wondered which Oregon is at different points of this season. It's that fascinating four-game stretch that will weed out the Ducks if they can't hack it. Yes, there's a Civil War waiting at the end.

Yes, there's a trip to Arizona, and a game against Arizona State. But those will either be critical or inconsequential depending on how the Ducks handle the four-game, five-week job that sits in front of them today.

Oregon was efficient against WSU on offense. They were too physical and fast on defense. The Cougar players talked after the game about the Ducks' speed and depth, and remarked how relentless it felt to have all that yellow and black coming at them all night.

The WSU punter punted nine times. The Cougars only scoring drive of the night? One yard. And it took them three plays to travel the 36 inches.

Must have felt like a marathon.

[You know, now that WSU has played against both USC and Oregon, and with Oregon scoring nearly twice as many points on the Cougs as the Trojans, it would be very interesting to hear a Coug's perspective on which is the better team. After all, they would be the ones to know. So you're the experts, Cougs. Who is better, USC or Oregon?]

Yet after getting steamrolled, Washington State corner Daniel Simmons said of the Ducks, "They're more tricky than USC, but there's no way they're better."

[Stupid drunk Coug. What would he know?

That brings me to how terrible the Cougs really are. For the second consecutive game, their kicker missed the extra point. Once against USC? -- Hey, it happens. But twice?

When he lined up at Autzen, it was as if A) the fans knew that he muffed it last week, and B) they were mad WSU got a cheap TD and ruined a shut out. Autzen went crazy loud for the extra point try to bring the Cougs within 45 points of the Ducks. And if you were able to watch it on TV, you saw a close up of the kicker's (Nico Grasu) face.

Autzen was obviously inside his helmet. Waiting for the snap, he was rolling his eyes, shrugging his shoulders, throwing up his hands, looking at the stands.

Whoa now! Is this Eugene or Berkeley?

With Ducks' success comes Duck fan debauchery.

The snap came. . . . . I could've kicked a brick across the street better than he kicked that ball. The shank of all shanks.

I'd like to ask the Cougs a follow-up question: Who is better, USC or Oregon, AT AUTZEN? Because that's where the game is happening.]

Understand, Oregon got its wake up call in week one of the season. They showed up, rolled out the uniforms and helmets, looked around like they expected to win, and got flattened. The timing of that no-show in Boise ends up advantageous when you consider how much better the Ducks have looked week to week.

Said center Jordan Holmes of the win over WSU: "We were far from a perfect game. We'll keep busting our hump."

You have to like that.

You also have to appreciate that Oregon lined up against a lousy Washington State team and did exactly what good teams are supposed to do to bad teams -- the Ducks suffocated the Cougars.

The momentum is encouraging because Oregon has not gone 4-0 against its next four opponents (UCLA, Washington, USC and Stanford) in the same season since 1948. This is not a misprint. This is not an error. Mike Bellotti never beat all four in the same season. Rich Brooks never did it. Neither did Don Read, Dick Enright, Jerry Frei or Len Casanova. [There is one practical reason for part of that amazing stat, at least after the Pac-8 became the Pac-10. The league had an eight-game format, meaning each team skipped playing one league opponent every year. In the 1994 Rose Bowl year for instance, Oregon didn't beat UCLA because they didn't play them. Sorry for showing the secret behind your magic trick, Canzano.]

If the Ducks are going to maximize what they have in front of them Kelly will have to pull off the feat of feats in his rookie season. So, are the Ducks that kind of team? [Bring 'em on. We ain't scared. We got chunks of teams like them in our STOOL!!! ]


[Speaking of that 1994-95 Rose Bowl year, it's TRIVIA QUESTION time.
Oregon did, in fact, lose to one Pac-10 team that year. Who was it? Hint: The answer is rather ironic at this moment.

Is Masoli injured or what?
Masoli hurt his knee " a little bit" in the first half and was wearing ice on it the rest of the game. But "he's fine," the coach says. Masoli says, "I could've gone out there and continued playing." "He's doing well," the coach says again. "He's day to day."
SAY WHAT? Oregon fans have been down this treacherous road before. All of that talk means one of two things: 1) He's fine. 2) He's done for the season.
More as I cringe to hear it.

POLLS
Oregon is 13th in the AP and 17th in the coach's poll. The only Pac-10 team ahead of them is USC.] --kb