Every team, every coach, every star, Heisman-contending quarterback needs a game to bring people to their feet.
Sure, I was saying all week that I thought Oregon would beat Michigan State. I said it sitting down. On the bus, at the dinner table, on the soccer field – the Ducks should win this game. It’s at Autzen after all.
But believe me when I tell you I wasn’t screaming “Ducks Win!” from the head of the table, or the front of the bus. I wasn’t saying it too loudly, or too confidently.
Honestly, I was worried about Michigan State’s running game, their physicality, and their refined sense of self. I told people the game would be close.
And it was, for a while. The Ducks jumped out in front early by leaning on big plays, before Sparty confirmed everyone’s worst fears by pounding the Ducks in the second quarter, shredding their soft defense and soft mentality to the tune of twenty straight points stretching into the third quarter.
But then Oregon stood up – and I’ll bet a bunch of us are standing behind them too.
The Ducks got the last 28 points of the game. Take away that second quarter, and Don Pellum’s defense gave up one point per quarter. The Spartan’s run game disappeared. So did their quarterback.
Marcus Mariota, on the other hand, was sensational. The game turned when escaped a backfield full of white shirts for a flip pass to Thomas Tyner to improbably convert a third down. The Ducks never looked back
It was an astonishing show of force, something akin to driving that pregame Harley Davidson down the throat of a Michigan State team lauded for their willpower, calm, and quiet confidence.
Not after that. Oregon’s second half was just plain loud.
The way the Ducks got up off the mat and went for the knockout harkened back to the top-ten matchup at Autzen Stadium.
It was Jim Harbaugh’s last trip to Eugene. His Stanford team was helmed by a quarterback named Andrew Luck, and they jumped all over the Ducks to the tune of an early 21-3 lead.
But Oregon stormed back. By the time it was over, LaMichael James was a Heisman candidate, Chip Kelly was the hottest coach in the county, and every ounce of trepidation surrounding the Ducks’ validity as a national championship contender had been fog-horned into the Willamette.
And I just wonder if we didn’t see something similar here. Of course that Ducks team in 2010 came within a field goal of the crystal trophy.
I know this: When I pick the Ducks again in a big game this season, it won’t be quietly. It won’t be sitting down. They’ve earned the confidence and admiration of a country that was left last season wanting exactly the kind of performance we saw today.
Gutsy, resilient, and too-damn-fast.
This season has started for real now. Oregon still may slip up at some point this year, but we’re in it for the long haul with the 2014 Ducks.
Mark Helfrich can stand tall this week. This win was made first and foremost with Mariota, but complimented by a bunch of young guys – his guys.
Royce Freeman rocked it. He’s probably the number one back before the year is out. Devon Allen was terrific too.
Ifo Ekpre-Olomu lived up to the hype, and Joe Walker may be just be the second best player on this defense too.
Don Pellum rescued an increasingly desperate situation by eliminating the three-man rush in the second half, and calling a more consistent game. Michigan State couldn’t stand straight – and when it came time for a smash-mouth, line-of-scrimmage, fourth-and-short bull-rush, Oregon stuffed MSU to all but seal the game.
Best of all, it was no surprise.
It’s a banner day for the Ducks – and it feels good to salute this team and say simply, that was a job awfully well done.
No shadows this week. No controversy. Just a massive win over the kind of team it’s been said Oregon couldn’t beat, let alone upend by nineteen.
Helfrich has gone about instilling in his team substance this year – the layer underneath the gleam of the Oregon brand. That’s what the blue collared undershirts were about this preseason, and that was the number one area of praise for this year’s incoming freshman class.
Grit. Angela Lee Duckworth, a doctor studying what separates the successful students in American schools from the rest of the pack suggests – or rather insists – that grit is the number one ingredient for success.
Duckworth went to Harvard and Oxford, and she says grit is the best predictor of where a person is going to end up in life.
Oregon could have laid down and bled out in the staggering heat Saturday afternoon at Autzen. Instead, a little grit and a lot of Mariota has the Ducks dynasty picking speed and hurdling towards January’s first Final Four.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
