An amusing diversion for the mid-morning: saw this for the first time last night, and a Facebook friend shared it today to remind me of it. As an added Oregon-specific bonus, the clip was produced by hotshot ad agency Weiden + Kennedy. Working stiffs--human and otherwise--should be able to relate...
Great news for the Ducks, certainly--not only in, but as a 9 seed from the South and playing in Arkansas, in a classic upset matchup against Mississippi State. Beyond that game lies a likely challenge from the #1 seed Memphis Tigers...ugh.
The Vikings unfortunately drew the 16th seed in the East, giving them Big-12 Kansas for a first round game. I believe no #16 has ever beaten a #1, but of course there's always a first time. Good luck to both teams!
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This is a story I've mean meaning to get to for a couple of days, but today seems an apt time to get it done, since it's Selection Sunday. (I can't imagine the number of small-time pastors in churches around the country who have gone with "Where will you be on Selection Sunday?"-themed sermons.) There are two Oregon teams involved in either the selection process or seeding process, having been given a berth already.
The good--hell, outSTANDING--news is that the Portland State Vikings, having won the Big Sky Conference championship on Wednesday in convincing fashion, are headed somewhere next week to do some Dancing. Their first NCAA Tournament appearance comes with a school record 23 wins and some pretty sweet play from guys like Deonte Huff and Kyle Coston. You have to figure they'll be 14th seed at best, and will draw a national power. If they're 15 or 16 the historical odds are stacked strongly against them, but the magic of a 14 comes along every now and again for the right team. They'll find out this afternoon where they'll go and who their Goliath is.
The other team who might see NCAA tourney play is the Ducks, who electrified the tournament last year in going to the Elite Eight. The loss of Aaron Brooks to the NBA has really taken a toll on that level of play for the Ducks, and the remaining core has struggled at times to hold the team together in difficult shooting times. The hometown paper is less than optimistic, and not apparently in a charitable mood:
Forget the long, slow, second-half comeback. If the Ducks are lucky, the selection committee, weary after a long day in an Indianapolis hotel conference room, went out for a late dinner Thursday night and missed the first half.
Because if it comes down to Arizona State or Oregon, do you think the selection committee will look more favorably on Oregon’s loss or the Sun Devils’ near-miss to USC (after another bad call by Pac-10 officials in the final seconds)?
Risers Darren McFadden, RB, Arkansas: McFadden is already the top prospect in this draft, yet he further distanced himself from the pack as his combine workout was nothing less than spectacular. McFadden weighed in at 211 pounds then ran both of his forty's in the low 4.3 second area. His fast times will get most of the headlines, yet McFadden displayed great footwork and cutting skills during the practice session and was equally effective catching the ball.
Jonathan Stewart, RB, Oregon: Stewart was another big back who amazed scouts with his speed. The junior from Oregon tipped the scales at 230 pounds, yet timed both of his forty's in the low 4.4's. He also completed 28 reps on the bench press, which topped all running backs. Stewart is likely to be rated as one of the top eight players in the draft.
Oh...well. Maybe it's not the same guy. But I know Jon is a strong guy; I once saw a picture of him working out. Look at his lift routine:
"Why, God? Why must children get too heavy to carry?"
The dejected figure at left is obviously Oregon Ducks QB Dennis Dixon, the darling of the state for much of the fall and now a tragic figure. He is headed to the locker room for tests in the second quarter under his own power, but had to know he may have been leaving the collegiate field for the last time as a competitor. And as gracious a teammate as he has been towards Brady Leaf his entire career, he knew like Bellotti knew and everyone in the country knew--Brady Leaf didn't make Oregon a title team. It was Dennis Dixon.
I have to say I was pretty damn depressed to discover that not only were the Ducks behind, but that Dixon had left, the horrible "someone said maybe for the season" hearsay just puncturing you like a shiv into a kidney. I admit I pretty nearly teared up, not because I am THAT attached to Ducks football (I'm just a hopeless Oregon homer), but this really is a maniacally cursed team, and Dennis deserved better.
It was Vince Young all over again, a team with a quarterback who just could not be figured out or stopped, leading a competent but not spectacularly talented group of kids with giant hearts. There can't be more than a handful of players in football history with a sweeter fake than Dixon. And man can he run. He was a lock for the Heisman if he simply didn't have a bad game and the Ducks won out. And the way the game started, his 39-yard fake-everybody-in-the-house untouched run to glory in front of millions on TV, this looked like a legend in the making.
And then he planted in the grass and suddenly decided to go the other way. And all of it--the Heisman, the title dreams, the validation for Pac-10 and particularly NW football--vanished. It was like Rembrandt giving way to the caricaturist at Coney Island. Bless Brady Leaf, he had to know he couldn't do for the offense what Dixon had magically learned to do this offseason. He tried, and chewed up yards, and was game about it. But like everyone else looking for some redemption FINALLY for Oregon football, when Dixon went down the shoulders slumped and "we're not gonna make it" was the look on the faces of players and fans alike.
I just wanted to congratulate the Oregon Ducks on being ranked #2 in the nation. Not too shaby for a team that went into the season not ranked at all.
But they've played some great football, and they're getting the recognition they deserve. And unlike last time when it appeared they'd be in the national championship, this time all the polls are unanimous (coaches, AP, Harris, etc.) in ranking Oregon as the #2 team. Only the computerized ranking has Oregon at a different spot - #3.
I'm not a Ducks fan (I grew up in Texas and am a Texas A&M fan), but I know what this means to the University of Oregon. Going to a big bowl game (which it is sure to do - according to reports the worst they can do is the Rose Bowl) is a huge deal for a University. They typically receive a large amount of money, which really helps at times like these when universities and colleges keep having to raise tuition and fees to get by.
So congrats to the Ducks. I hope you do well in your next three games. Even my husband, a Beavers fan, understands how important it is that the Ducks defeat his team later this season.
Hey, did you hear the Ducks fairly easily handled the previously unbeaten Arizona State Sun Devils, continuing their march towards a Pac-10 title and a BCS bowl, possibly the big daddy of them all--the national championship?
You didn't? Thanks to the magic of ESPN video, you can check out the highlights from the game, including a sweet screen fake by Dennis Dixon that opened up an easy TD lob to Jaison Williams, and an outright nasty cut by Jonathan Stewart that led to perhaps the killing TD. When it was all over, the fans knew what it meant (and surely so did the crowdsurfing Duck mascot, who has probably been on the front page of ESPN more times than any other mascot in history). Here's an in-crowd celebration video:
While neither LSU nor Oregon will be ranked in the top two of the new AP poll today, don't discount the notion that these two powerhouse teams will battle for the BCS championship in January.
Ohio State and Boston College both face difficult schedules down the stretch. Conventional wisdom suggests each will lose at least once, if not twice.
Look for Virginia Tech to knock off BC Thursday, and Penn State to upset Ohio State. After the game, Joe Paterno may not know where he is, but his team will have the victory.
BCS National Title Game: LSU vs. Oregon
Fittingly, the two best conferences this season offer up their best, as the Ducks get a chance to beat the Tigers.
Oregon gets in on their SOS, which increases as they face the Trojans, Sun Devils, and Bruins.
LSU gets in by virtue of their SEC title, and Oregon represents the Pac-10 as their champion. This would be a wildly entertaining game.
OK, there's that little matter of getting past USC, ASU and UCLA--but the first two are at home, and despite ASU's #4 BCS ranking, the pollsters don't think too much of them. There are a number of "ifs" in this scenario, but assuming some kind of loss by both BC and Ohio State, I think there's a strong chance this analyst is right on the money if both LSU and the Ducks win out.
Wouldn't THAT be something?
Update, midnight-- Well, in thumbing through the 10/22 Sports Illustrated, who should also reach this conclusion but college football beat writer Stewart Mandel? LSU v Oregon--wait for it.
For almost all of the 2007 college football season, the exploits of legitimate Heisman candidate Dennis Dixon, Jonathan Stewart and the rest of the spread-offense, speed defense Ducks have dominated Oregon football news. For the last few years the Beavers have lagged behind the Ducks in both wins and sartorial splendor, maintaining a solid pace of mediocrity punctuated by a bowl or two. For this year the roles seemed no different; the Ducks started out with a bang that included a huge and dominating road win over Michigan, while the Beavers stumbled. The Ducks were waddling high until Dixon finally faltered some two weeks ago and they failed to defend Autzen, losing to the Cal Bears by mere inches on a touchdown-cum-touchback.
Moving up to #2 in the rankings as previous Oregon thrashee Stanford took out USC, Cal looked to utterly squash a weakened Beavers team in Berkeley. Didn't quite turn out that way. In a wild finish that culminated in time running out on a Cal FG attempt, the Beavers blew a 10 point lead but held on as Cal tried furiously to snare the #1 ranking (LSU having flamed out in overtime vs Kentucky a week after a bruising win against Florida). As time expired, few could have imagined the mess at the top that exists now, with Ohio State and...South Florida?...suddenly 1-2 in the first BCS ranking. Oregon? Number 10, the SECOND highest-ranked Pac-10 team behind Arizona State at #8, whose biggest win at 7-0 is just Colorado and faces a severely pissed Cal team in two weeks. (Oregon is ranked by AP at #7; the Sun Devils at #12).
The Ducks have plenty more to show, and ironically Cal's loss has made BCS points harder to come by even as it improves the Ducks' chances for a Pac-10 title, since Oregon's loss is now against a lesser ranked team. But even with injuries to key players in the crushing win over Washington State yesterday, victories over Arizona State and USC coupled with (say) a Cal loss to USC, and the Ducks are Rose Bowl bound...or better. They head to take on the Huskies before two huge home games against USC and the Sun Devils.
In any case, major congratulations to coach Riley in Corvallis; after looking like yesterday's breakfast to start the season they are at 4-3, even up in the Pac-10 and just a couple of wins from a bowl game.
ESPN College GameDay has confirmed it will produce its weekly college football preview show from the University of Oregon Saturday morning preceding the Ducks' home game vs. No. 6 California.
Kickoff for the football game, which will be televised regionally by ABC on ESPN, will be 12:30 p.m. (PDT).
Well, they tried, I guess. After a couple of weeks in which supporters--if not the candidates themselves--got a little testy with each other over Jeff Merkley's vote on a symbolic resolution in 2003, it appeared as if the Novick campaign attempted to start the post-Labor Day phase of the primary with a more light-hearted challenge: Ducks vs Cardinal in football. If the Ducks (Novick's alma mater) beat Merkley's Stanford, Jeff would have had to put a Novick sign in their window for a day. Giving odds, Novick pledged to pimp Merkley in HIS window for TWO days.
Novick has a theory -- far too complicated to go into here -- that Duck football games are good political predictors.
The Merkley campaign's response -- well, here it is. You sort it out.
"Like most Oregon Democrats, Jeff Merkley knows Republican incumbent Gordon Smith is the whole ballgame. And that game isn't won until Gordon Smith is no longer in the U.S. Senate."
Would that be a yes or a no?
So much for brightening the mood and putting the competition on a less prickly footing...far be it from me to suggest campaign strategy, but touchy, humorless and dour is no way to go through a primary, son.
...or at least his choice of undergraduate venue and thus football rooting interest, anyway:
Today Democratic U.S. Senate candidate and proud University of Oregon alum Steve Novick offered fellow Democratic candidate and Stanford alum Jeff Merkley a friendly wager on the outcome of the September 22 University of Oregon - Stanford University football game.
"The first bellwether of this campaign is approaching rapidly as our respective alma maters prepare to meet on the gridiron," Novick said. "We believe that the Duck - Cardinal contest will be a strong indicator of the outcome of the primary."
Novick's even giving odds, seeing as how Stanford's football team...sucks. But imagine all those political candidates in Michigan who challenged their Appalachian State-alumni opponents last week...if the Ducks should lose (and they'd better be ready for a REALLY pissed team of Wolverines), based on Novick's assertion of bellwether status does this mean he'll drop out if the Cardinal pulls off the upset two weeks later? That's bigger stakes than putting a Merkley sign in your campaign office window, ain't it? In the meantime, expect Jeff's office to respond with a blistering "Novick Is Anti-Tree" attack in order to siphon key environmentalist votes. Can't we all just get ALONG??
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The dejected figure at left is obviously Oregon Ducks QB Dennis Dixon, the darling of the state for much of the fall and now a tragic figure. He is headed to the locker room for tests in the second quarter under his own power, but had to know he may have been leaving the collegiate field for the last time as a competitor. And as gracious a teammate as he has been towards Brady Leaf his entire career, he knew like Bellotti knew and everyone in the country knew--Brady Leaf didn't make Oregon a title team. It was Dennis Dixon.
