THROUGH AN OREGON DUCK’S EYE

This Is The Year. Seriously, This Year Is The One.

via allcougdup.com

Nothing in college football feels better than waking up Sunday morning with your team still near the top.

The top this year is the 1-4 ranking for the first scheduled College Football Playoffs.

No matter what else you’ve got going, a winning team makes it all better.

You’ve got a life that matters more than any football team, but knowing your guys are still in contention for a title shot adds extra spit to the shine on your day.

Duck fans know how it feels to wake up with one extra loss during the season, or in the last game like 2010.

It’s okay to say Oregon should have won the Natty against Auburn. You’re not a poor sport to say the Ducks played a rigged team, but more on that later.

If Oregon had won that game the recruiting would have changed. Different players would have added an extra win the following years.

While no one says the Ducks would have gone back to back to back since 2011, not with Alabama, Alabama, and Florida State in the way, fans know they were in the mix.

With one near miss in a title game and several BCS wins later, the 2014 Ducks are on schedule to relieve fans of their sour grapes. First the bye week, then Colorado followed by Oregon State. The last hurdle before the playoffs comes in the PAC12 title game.

This week the Arizona State Sun Devils look like the PAC12 Championship opponent. If everything works out for both teams, the Ducks meet them after the #6 Devils get softened up by Oregon State, Washington State, and Arizona to end their year.

Is it too much to ask the Football Gods for Oregon to win out? Please? Only then will fans stop looking for ways to explain Duck losses.

Auburn won in 2011 with a junior college transfer accused of taking money, or his father was accused of asking for cash to support his church without Cam’s knowledge. Something was hinky.

On April 3, 2013, Selena Roberts posted Auburn’s Tainted Title, Victim, Violations and Vendettas For Glory on roopstigo.com detailing Auburn’s way of winning. Whatever happened, it was more than a Texas street agent dancing the boot scootin’ boogie with an Oregon recruit’s mom.

If the Ducks win out we won’t hear any more about USC’s vacated title and Reggie Bush’s returned Heisman as the reason Auburn should vacate their title and return Cam Newton’s Heisman.

That day has passed. So has the time Oregon Coach Chip Kelly spent after the Auburn loss looking at the Tigers. Later he said players like them just don’t show up in Eugene.

First game the next season against LSU, another Tiger in the SEC, Oregon fans heard the term ‘leg whip’ more often than any game before or since. How many leg whipping penalties does an SEC team need to win? As many as it takes.

This whining needs to stop.

If Oregon wins out, fans will stop taking joy in Cam Newton’s NFL career. Against the Chip Kelly coached Philadelphia Eagles Newton took the sort of beating on Monday Night Football you don’t wish on anyone.

Good mental health says move on instead of sharing Coach Kelly’s victory on the sideline. He’s in the League now, not the PAC12. The times are different, but Kelly’s wins still ring true.

Watching Newton get smashed doesn’t change the past, even if he’s crushed by former Oregon players.

It’s called Win The Day, not Win Yesterday, and today the Oregon Ducks moved to #2 on the College Football Playoff rankings.

There’s something cooking in the college football kitchen when a one loss team moves ahead of an undefeated. And here in Oregon it smells good, really good.