Tako Tuesdays: The Doldrums

Being from Lewiston, ID; I was at that game against the Cougars. Marty was my favorite player on the Ducks in my college years. His iced veins were on display that night in Beasley for sure. “Money Marty Leunen”.

Great write up Tako!!

The three-headed monster of Jeremiah, Blount, and Masoli running behind a big, nasty offensive line, then throwing downfield to Terence Scott, Ed Dickson, Jeff Maehl, and Jaison Williams. The Civil War and Holiday

We had two 1000-yard backs who both averaged over 7 yards per carry. SEVEN!

The defense wasn’t great overall, but the individual talent in the secondary (Chung, Ward, Thurmond, Byrd) was incredible.

WAY TOO MUCH QUACK IN ONE DAY!! You have to RATION the quack in the offseason! A DebAte-T-Q and a Tako Tuesday on the same day?? Everyone is going to be really sorry on Thursday when there are like 7 comments on AtQ all day long.

So it’s much harder to choose favorites..

Football: Toss-up between 1980 and 2010, both chosen for their resilience and Holy Crap They’re Fun To Watch factor as much as performance on the field.

Hoops: 1974-75; the Kamikaze Kids will always sit at the head of the table in the pantheon of exalted basketball excellence. 1969-1971 (Stan Love notwithstanding) and 2006-7 close behind.

Boooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!

We made it to the National Championship – there is nothing better or more exciting than that.

Basketball specific is a toss-up between 01-02 and 06-07. Rid is still my favorite Bball Duck and the combination of the Lukes and high-flying Freddie was so awesome! But I loved the back court of Brooks and Porter (back when he had a PG that freed him up to rain 3s and not have to carry the team every night).

1994 Football

I went to my first Duck game that season (The awesome Holiday Bowl) and I really followed the team that entire season for the first time.

Shit. I graduated in 1993. Suddenly, everything is making me feel old.

Hockey? Please. It’s Canadian soccer, and Canadian NASCAR, all at the same time. And I find it pretty sad that there is exactly one Canadian team left in the playoffs, along with teams from San Jose, CA and Tampa Bay, FL, where no pond has naturally frozen over since the Miocene Epoch. Step your game up, Canada, or we will invade you. Our flag could use some more stars, and British Columbia is just itching to join us as a Pacific Northwest state.

Somebody’s looking to start a border war. I shall defend the honour of my former homeland.

Where’s Al Orange? We’re going to sew some Canadian Flags on our backpacks and get really mad when people innocently mistake our accents as American. Blah, blah, blah…currency rates; blah…blah…blah America’s hat; blah…blah…blah health care…oh wait.

Anyway. I would actually like to legitimatley pass the doldrums.

The joy of a championship run makes for an incredibly fun season, and 2010 may not be topped in terms of success for a long time.
But for me there was something special about the 2005 season. I was a casual Ducks fan since the Fiesta Bowl victory, but attending University on the opposite coast and in a different country to UO made it hard to follow the team. The 2005 team changed that. While the rest of the College Football world was focused on the USC juggernaut and Vince Young led Texas, the Ducks were putting together a quality resume. Kellen Clemens caught the Mike Belotti senior QB magic (See also Harrington, J; and Dixon, D) and was a three headed monster with Williams and Whitehead.
Ngata was incredible, and allowed players like Nelson, Phillips, and Phinese to hold their own on D. We got our first taste of J-Stew. And when Clemens went down there wasn’t the drop off that we saw in 2007. The Dixon/Leaf combination worked, and produced one of the more memorable Civl Wars in the Fog…until 08, and then 09.
I think the team gets somewhat forgotten in the success of the 2001-2010 seasons because of the notable blemish against USC and the way the season ended, on the outside of the BCS, with Leaf throwing an interception to seal the game. (The BCS expanded to 5 games the following year…if that structure were in place for 2005 the Ducks would have played Penn State in the Rose Bowl).

That was the season that sealed my Duck fandom.

Culminating in the Fiesta Bowl win. Loved that team.

My freshmen year @ UO. Like Tako I was in the the band and was lucky enough to follow that group through the whole season. After 3 HORRIBLE losses during the non-conference schedule, including one to the University of Portland, Oregon came out of no where to destroy Arizona by 30 at home (during winter break, no student section) as well as one very famous Freddie Jones dunk against ASU. The team went undefeated at Mac Court that season, and included one very special game against USC for first place in the Pac-10. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Mac Court that loud. The refs had to stop the game, twice, to try to clam the crowd down. After their attempts failed, Ernie had to get on the PA system to ask fans not to jump anymore. Pac-10 champs (having to win at both LA schools to close out the season) and a sweet, sweet run all the way to the elite-8. I got to travel to both the 1st and 2nd round with the basketball band, my favorite memory from the NCAA tourney was Luke Ridnour shutting TJ Ford down during the sweet-16 all game.

Great book. I havent read it in awhile, but I remember THE AWFUL DYNNE.

As hard as it may be to believe that a team that singlehandedly harpooned the hopes of my school would be my favorite Oregon team…

No, Wisconsin simply wasn’t good at all that year. The “rank” went to hell, along with our season, shortly thereafter.