Ducks Have Arrived!

[Did you see the line the oddsmakers gave for the game? Oregon is favored by four over a team with the longest current win streak in the country. Utah had a legitimate argument to play for the National Championship last year. They're still winning; and the bookies -- who would be out of work if they weren't accurate -- say Oregon will beat them. Those of us who have watched Oregon play this season can only be cautiously optimistic at best. Utah, underdogs to our team? They're good enough to beat Boise State!

So why is Oregon favored?

Let's go back 10 to 15 years, between the Rose Bowl in 95 and Joey Harrington's final season in 2001. In those years, had you bet the spread on every game Oregon played, you would have come out way ahead in the money. Win or lose, Oregon was outperforming the oddsmakers' expectations more often than not. I know because I was studying it.

Now couple that with what has happened since. A bowl berth almost every year. Stadium expansion and a loud reputation to go with it. Improved facilities. Almost embarrassingly heavy Nike style marketing. And then came a nationally televised trip to the Big House in Michigan. The Wolverines were favored, of course, even though they had a devastating defeat to Appalachian State the week prior. But if you're a bookie, that's what you do for a Michigan. When a team comes to Ann Arbor, and it's not Ohio State, give the nod to the maze and blue.
Oregon won with stunning ease, and bookies all across the Nevada desert must have said, "We can never underestimate Oregon again. They've cost us too much money."

This year, Oregon was favored against Boise State and they lost. They were favored against Purdue by 12; they squeaked out a two point win in the last minute. Now undefeated Utah is coming to town. The Utes got the momentum, right?
"No no no," say the oddsmakers, "were not going to get fooled by Oregon again."
What does this all mean? Just this:

The days of complaining that Oregon doesn't get any respect are over. They've arrived! They ARE respected -- even for games where they probably shouldn't be. It means the players can no longer say things like what Masoli said after the Purdue game:

"It's a relief just because we knew we could do it, and there were a lot of doubters and a lot of people who didn't believe in us,'' Masoli said. "Positive things from here on out."

Message to Oregon players: The only doubters you need to be concerned with are the ones INSIDE the locker room. Your stadium is full. Your game is nationally televised. You're favored.

Even Ken Goe, the Oregonian's Pac-10 writer, who has unfairly earned a reputation as a 'Duck Hater', had this to say about the Ducks this week . . . .]

Considering where Oregon was 12 days ago, it's been an impressive performance.
We're still in September, and there is a long way to go. A college football season is not static. The best teams survive injuries, bad breaks and disappointment. They adjust. They never stop improving.
In 1994, I saw an Oregon team start 1-2, with ugly, one-sided losses to Hawaii and Utah, that went on to win the Pac-10 title and play Penn State in the Rose Bowl.
In 2003, I saw an Oregon team start 4-0, then lose four of the next five.
This Oregon team began the season with a spectacular face plant. But against Purdue, Kelly and his players showed a resilience and a clear refusal to let the Boise State disaster define them.
I like what that says about Kelly as a coach, and I wouldn't write off the Ducks yet.

[Pretty high praise from a Duck hater. By the way, in the left column I added links to Goe's stories along with several other sources for Oregon and Pac-10 football.

So now, instead of putting that chip on their shoulder year-in and year-out and playing the "No respect" card, the Ducks will have to find a new way to motivate themselves. They need to come out and say, "We've got to win this because we're expected to win. We're Oregon. And winning is what we do" . . . . . Something like that.

I can hear some of you laughing. You're hearing me say Oregon needs to start acting like an Ohio State or Oklahoma or USC, even though reality says we're nowhere near their league.
Well I'm telling you that there are a bunch of guys in Las Vegas crushing their cigarettes into the bottoms of their scotch and sodas who have been doing this for decades. And they say Oregon is one of the favored.

So it's up to our players and us fans to start feeling it. Start acting like it. Believe in it. Wear the suit. Walk the walk. Talk the talk. Punch the punch . . . . OK skip that last one.] --kb