Reality can hurt. But it also can be a relief.
When Illinois completed scoring 21 unanswered points in their home game against Oregon today, adding on a touchdown in the fourth quarter that made 21-10 an impossible hurdle for the Ducks to overcome, I felt a wave of relief replace the mixture of anxiety and hope that was my emotional state up to that point.
The anxiety came from knowing that this was a must-win game if Oregon was to have any chance of making the playoffs this season, since the Ducks already had two losses.
The hope arose from the fact that if Oregon could beat Illinois in an away game, and injured first string quarterback Dante Moore could return to action for the next three games against Northwestern, Ohio State, and Michigan, the Ducks had a slim chance of going undefeated for the rest of the season — which would almost certainly get them into the playoffs.
And the relief stemmed from a stark conclusion: that Oregon simply is an average football team, notwithstanding all the pre-season hype about the Ducks having a real shot at a national championship, which led to a #2 ranking at the beginning of the season.
Meaning, for the rest of the season, I no longer had to worry about whether Oregon won. It simply didn’t matter. The Ducks might end up with a 6-6 record and go to a bowl game. But whether they won the Pop-Tarts Bowl, or whatever, meant nothing to me.
What confused me, though, was how the Oregon football team could appear so ordinary — something that was evident, though not to this degree, from the first game against Boise State — even though the Ducks were well stocked with 5-star players, an exemplary recruiting class, and a bunch of NFL prospects.
As so often happens, I had to wait for sportswriter John Canzano’s post-game analysis on his Bald Faced Truth substack (I’m a subscriber) to better understand how Oregon football could have so much potential and so little success this season. Here’s some excerpts:
The Oregon Ducks looked woeful and ordinary again on Saturday, losing 21-10 on the road to a humdrum Illinois team that started a freshman backup quarterback.
I should probably rephrase that.
The Ducks didn’t just “look” ordinary. They were ordinary. Are ordinary? Are they, even that, right now?
The offense was a second-half no-show. The defense did what it could for a few quarters, but eventually broke down amid the stress. Oregon blew a 10-0 first-half lead, getting outscored 21-0 the rest of the way. And that was that.
…The talent is there right now, be sure. The recruiting classes are there, absolutely. This is a $40 million roster operation that frequently takes — and doesn’t ever really lose — blue-chip starters in the transfer portal. But there’s something off about Oregon’s team this season. The Ducks appear disjointed and heavily distracted.
…I’ve seen this act before. It was in Athens in 2004. I was covering Team USA basketball. The so-called ‘Dream Team’ had Allen Iverson, LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade, and some others. It was coached by Larry Brown.
That team with all those All-Stars and Hall of Fame players lost to Puerto Rico. It was an astonishing feat. Do you have any idea what kind of sneakers Puerto Rico’s players wore in those games? I do. I looked down at their shoe tops when I interviewed them in the postgame locker room.
Substance and chemistry mattered on the court in those games. I’ll never forget the USA basketball players who were staying on the Queen Mary 2 — a luxurious floating hotel — being whipped by a bunch of guys from Puerto Rico who slept in dorm rooms and wore AND1 brand sneakers.
It took a total and complete organizational recalibration by USA Basketball to get redemption in the Olympics. The egos had to go. The star players had to accept smaller roles. The roster-building philosophy that had fostered a divided locker room had to be scrapped.
I wonder if Oregon is sufficiently humiliated by the way this is unfolding. Maybe the silver lining is that this isn’t going to be a 9-3 football season. No way. It might be closer to 6-6. That kind of flop won’t allow much in the way of cute excuses. It will demand wholesale changes.
Has Oregon’s football season turned into a fable that only Aesop would have appreciated? Are the Ducks a cautionary tale? The arrogance? Stubbornness? Entitlement? It’s all there, potentially.
Well, this football season is a disaster for Oregon. As Canzano said, the only bright spot will be if Coach Lanning understands that he can’t keep on doing the same thing, as that will only lead to more losses piling up. I’m no football expert, but it sure seems obvious that the offensive play-calling sucks, big time.
In game after game, there’s no adjustment when the offense can’t move the ball. Even after halftime, when I’d expect the team to assess what needs improving and make some changes. Instead, Oregon has become a predictable, unexciting, even boring team on offense — a big difference from previous years.
Canzano ends with:
Leadership takes guts and brains. It demands awareness. Lanning is going to have to admit he was wrong about some things, fire some people he believed in, and show us he understands how to adjust. There’s just something not right about what’s being thrown out there on game days. We can all see it.
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