Kirk Herbstreit did it again. On the BCS Show yesterday on ESPN, he referred to Thursday’s game with Stanford as “Oregon’s first real test.”
Really?
A variety of analysts have been making similar insipid statements throughout the season. First a road game against the ACC was the first real test, then Tennessee’s SEC-sized offensive and defensive lines were the real test, then a road game against #16 Washington and their big running back and improved defense, then #12 UCLA and Anthony Barr.
Stanford’s loss to Utah and LSU’s loss to Ole Miss ought to be the only proof anyone needs that every game is a real test. Oregon has been as tested as nearly anyone; they just keep obliterating the curve, destroying teams by a minimum of three touchdowns.
The Oregon team is thoroughly conditioned to think that way, to think of every opponent and every game as a real test. Even so, Marcus Mariota admitted this weekend that he has “a little bit of a chip on his shoulder” about the only team he’s lost to as Oregon quarterback. When asked about it, Mark Helfrich said that was fine, that heightened awareness, saying that if got the guys to practice with more focus on Saturday, he was all for it.
The game Thursday is on ESPN, and the network has that weekly show devoted to the unveiling of the BCS Championship poll. The BCS Championship Game is on Thursday, January 6th at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, also on ESPN. So it isn’t surprising the ESPN family of analysts, Herbstreit and Ed Cunninghusky and the rest, keep inventing new “real tests” for the Ducks.
For the team, it doesn’t matter. They couldn’t be more attentive, motivated and prepared as they will be on Thursday. They are indomitable, determined, unvanquished. They love playing football, and understand better than anyone that Stanford is a good football team and a tough matchup. They’d prepare the same way regardless.
But if the description of the game as “Oregon’s first real test” gets pollsters, pundits, and analysts to pay more close attention to the result, that can only be in Oregon’s favor. With the rules of the BCS game being what they are, they are locked in a contest where perception rules. Ultimately, perception, the relative strength of the nation’s top six teams, determines who gets to go to Pasadena.
There’s no getting to the championship game without passing real tests. All 13 of them.
Stanford is an impressive football team, rated 5th in the country. They are built like an old-school SEC team, around defense, a power running game with a big offensive line, exceptional special teams, and play-action passing out of a pro-set offense.
That makes them a real test for the Oregon Ducks, a team built around speed, tempo, and a dynamic offense. It’s the kind of pass/fail exam that’s tripped Oregon up a handful of times over the last five years: 54-7 since the Chip Kelly era began in 2009, Oregon’s few losses have been chiefly to good teams built around the power/defense/special teams/play-action model: Stanford, Ohio State, Auburn, LSU, USC, Stanford.
The other loss, to Boise State at the start of the 2009 season, was simply a debacle in every way. The Ducks were punchless and shell-shocked until midfield after the game, when one of them completely lost his poise. Oregon didn’t make a first down until the third quarter. Like it or not, the loss to Boise was when the myth of “Oregon can’t win a big game, can’t beat a physical opponent” started.
Get in a debate with a ardent fan from another part of the country about Oregon football, particularly the SEC, and invariably they throw up this argument, or a variant of it. It’s also the knee-jerk retort from Washington or USC honks. “What has Oregon ever done?” “How many national championships do you have?” “The Ducks beat up on bad teams, but they fail in big games.”
It’s asinine and dismissive, this exercise in selective memory, ignoring 36 wins in three years, four Top Ten rankings, four straight BCS bowls, and wins over Kansas State and Wisconsin that were considered “real tests” until the third quarter. From the Washington fans it conveniently sweeps away 10 years of painful and decisive history, and the harsh reality that the Dawgs seem headed for a fourth straight 7-6 season.
Call Thursday a “real test,” an epic battle of the PAC-12 century or just another game. If the Ducks win, they are one game closer to achieving the ultimate, the opportunity to face Florida State or Alabama for the national championship.
It’s the next game in a remarkable, entertaining and courageous season, and that’s enough of a test for anyone.
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