FanPost

From Everest to the Dead Sea - Oregon’s Rise to the Rose Bowl and defeat in the National Championship

Warning: This is a 3,400 word article (original). You will experience joy, pain, loss, sorrow and hope. If you still haven't quite healed from the championship game, read on. If you just want to relive the 2014 season, read on.

Last season the University of Oregon Ducks nearly reached the peak of success in college football. Like the line from Iron and Wine song we saw "such great heights", and overcame great adversity along the way. The 2014 journey was in many ways more rewarding than that of 2011, because our success was forged on the anvil of adversity; a plethora of injuries, and, at the time, a seemingly devastating mid-season loss to Arizona. The very fact that the journey was more rewarding made losing to Ohio State (again) that much harder to take.

At the beginning of every season I sit down and take an honest look at the schedule. I mark down expected wins and losses based on the previous season, returning starters, key players other teams have lost, predictions from experts and pundits, and just plain gut feeling. For the past few seasons I have generally identified 1-2 potential losses each season (Stanford anyone?). In 2014 I thought it was possible the Ducks would lose to Michigan State, perhaps even Stanford again. The Arizona teams looked strong, and UCLA would maybe finally put it all together. While there were tough games ahead without a doubt I generally felt strong predicting a college football playoff berth given we had Mariota and a lot of returning starters around him on both sides of the line (9 starters on offense returned; Buckner, Armstead, Washington, Hardrick, Malone, and Olomu returned on defense).

The first test was Michigan State, similar to Stanford but also seemingly stronger, faster, and more potent on offense. The game didn’t start well for them but they battled back with three touchdowns to end the first half, and early in the second half led by nearly 10 points. Let’s admit it, we were worried. It wasn’t looking good, not-at-all. Then the Ducks established themselves on both sides of the ball and dominated from there on out, winning handily and in the process sending a message to the entire football nation: yes we’re fast and can score plenty but can also take your best shot, get knocked down, and get back up and run right past you to victory. We had key stops, Ifo had this stupid interception (Ifo vs. MSU), Rolls Royce rolled. This was a particularly satisfying win. It was out of conference, against a physical team, one coming off a Rose Bowl victory the season before over Stanford. This wasn’t anything like beating Virginia or Tennessee. This was the cream of the BIG 14 (err, 10?).

In retrospect, this was the first mini-peak of the season; the joy of victory, the hope of much more to come. But with hope came trepidation. Sure, we’d made it to Base Camp, but ahead lay the Khumbu Icefall. Icefall

Offensive lineman began to fall to injuries at an alarming rate and the drop-off in skill level between starters and backups was precipitous. The game verses Washington State was an omen, a bad one. A portent of struggle, an augur of doom. A ridiculous number of surrendered sacks and only winning by a touchdown. The writing was on the wall. Oregon was Oregon, but with one bad wheel. The defense was good but not shutdown good; not good enough to win verses the potent offensives that pepper the PAC-12 like graffiti on the side of a passing freight train. And that’s what this felt like, only the train was named opportunity and the destination was the first ever College Football Playoffs.

And then Arizona came to town. It was like reliving a bad nightmare. They didn’t blow us out, we weren’t losing all game, but they put together enough offense and enough defensive stops to pull out the win, to topple the giant (notwithstanding the ridiculous celebration penalty on Tony Washington for bowing that extended an Arizona drive and led to the go head score a few plays later). It was fitting that the final blow was Mariota running, getting stripped of the football by Scooby Wright III ( Scooby Strip - Damn you Scooby!). He’d been in that position soo many times over the past few weeks, one too many times it turned out. It was fitting that we lost that way, because everyone in the country could see that our offensive line was, due to injuries, simply not able to perform at the highest level required to win week in and week out in the PAC-12.

Despite this crushing loss (never forget this picture Duck fans:AZ in Autzen

there was a glimmer of hope. Like when the Hubble telescope identifies a new planet based on a wobble of light (How to detect planets), there was just a wobble of light at the end of the proverbial Arizona game tunnel. Why you ask?

First, the playoff committee would take injuries into account (that was huge, let’s all be honest-HUUUUUYGE). Second, it was relatively early in the season, the Ducks could win out and work their way back up to near the top. Certainly they could still win the PAC-12 north and make it to the championship game. Third, Florida State looked terrible nearly every week and surely they would lose at least one game, and the SEC would cannibalize itself making one loss teams in the playoff the norm, not the exception. TCU and Baylor still had to play each other, OSU already had one loss, etc. Just a glimmer, a wobble of light, but it was there nonetheless. That wobble of light wobbled a little more when we didn’t drop very far in the rankings the next week, in fact, it was surprising how few spots we dropped. In the coaches poll we dropped from 4th to 11th, only 7 spots, after losing to an unranked Arizona team. It turns out that small drop would ripple out through the surface of college football all the way to the national championship game.Water_drop_impact_on_a_water-surface.0.jpg

The test would come the following week on the road at the Rose Bowl against a very good UCLA team with a mobile quarterback (it’s a long story but I watched the game from a hotel room in Toronto, and it was on a local channel there! Nice!). Could our line hold up long enough to allow our offense to keep up with Brett Hundley? Could our defense keep us in it? Could we just…hold…on? Um, yeah. We fired on all cylinders, on both sides of the ball, and quickly looked like the Ducks of old. Dominant. Scoring fast, and often. Yeah, we gave up a few late touchdowns, but it was never close. Once again we crushed UCLA (sixth time in a row!) and it felt good to be the Ducks again, to be ourselves again, and to not be playing with a bad wheel.

Husky’s amazing defense? We put up 45. Bears amazing offense? We put up 59 to their 41. Stanford the Duck killers? Was never even close. We dominated start to finish and crushed them 45-16. Yes ladies and gentleman the Ducks were back and flying up the rankings, making a case each week that it really was our bad wheel that caused that early season loss. Didn’t you see us crush Michigan State? That was pre-injury! Now you’ve seen us crush the Bruins, Huskies and Stanford! Post-injuries! It’s all making sense now, the loss to Arizona was just an anomaly. A freak loss where Arizona played perhaps their best game and our injuries simply caught up to us. I mean, we only lost by a single touchdown late in the game, remember?

Then Utah happens. It’s not looking good. The Ducks are about to be down by 14 points early and something that makes zero sense to everyone who watches football at any level (am I right?): another player drops the football BEFORE entering the end zone. BEFORE THE END ZONE and DROPPED THE BALL do not belong together under any circumstance, yet it happens a few times each season (*que collective head shaking, yeah I’m looking at you Byron Marshall: Byron drop). We pick it up and run the other way for a touchdown (Utah drop). This play was really a metaphor for our entire season. The loss to Arizona was our dropped ball before the goal line and the scoop and return for a touchdown was the rest of the season. We won easily 51-27.

Colorado and Oregon State, I’m sorry to say, were hardly footnotes, more like scrimmages, practice games. I’m sure they have pride but they simply aren’t anywhere near our level of football. But the cards were down, the die cast, and Arizona was once again coming to down. The giant killers, the miracle workers, the quirky quarterback and his sidekick Scooby. Arizona had to be saying to themselves: "You Ducks think you’re back? Not so fast, the PAC-12 title goes through us and last time we met we went through you."

Oregon was cool, calm, and collected. Like the first game never happened. We played at near 100% efficiency and Arizona looked lost at times, like they didn’t know who they were, like they hadn’t been there before. The final score was 51-13, erasing any doubt who the better team was and cementing in everyone’s mind the reality that the first game was indeed a complete fluke of injuries. Since losing to Arizona the Ducks had scored 42, 45, 59, 45, 51, 44, 47, and now 51 verses Arizona. That’s 384 if you are wondering, or an average of 48 points per game. It’s ridiculous - it’s Oregon Ducks football.

Through our play over the final eight games the Ducks had redeemed themselves. That brief glimmer of hope, that wobble of light after the Arizona loss…became a brilliant certainty. The Ducks were in the first ever College Football Playoff. Booya.

Florida State. Jameis Winston. Comeback kids. Crab legs. Yelling in the cafeteria. Criminal accusations. I’ll be honest, I haven’t disliked someone, or a team collectively, as much as I disliked Jameis Winston and Florida State last season in a loooooong time. All the last second wins, the poor character demonstrated by Jameis. It was just irksome. It was the antithesis of the Oregon football. Jameis the antithesis of Mariota. Opposites in every way. While FSU scraped by in a weak league we dominated ours, the strongest league in 2014 (ESPN article: 6-2 in bowl games). While Marcus did community service and visited kids in hospitals Jameis lived under a cloud of suspect actions.

Back to back Heisman winners going head to head, 91,000 people at the Rose Bowl. The first round of the playoffs. Most people assuming that the winner will get Alabama. People thinking finally, finally, Alabama and Oregon will meet for all the marbles. Yes, that’s right, most people thought Oregon would beat FSU. Why? Take a look at their season, look at every game. Go and watch the "highlights". They really struggled, over and over and over again and nobody thought that they’d be able to keep up with Oregon, much less come back to beat them like they’d done to so many other teams. They would be combating a team unlike any they had faced all season.

And it showed. Oregon didn’t fly out of the gate, let’s be honest, but they held FSU early, allowing only a field goal, stopping Jameis on 4th and goal, and scoring touchdowns. During the first half the teams felt each other out, probed defensive schemes, testing protective packages. Oregon was winning, but not by much, and FSU began to assert themselves and put some points on the board. We were up 18-6 with two minutes left in the half, but FSU made it 18-13 at the half and appeared to have some momentum. Mariota threw an interception (not a typo).

Half way through the 3rd quarter the game took a turn like few have seen before and few will ever see again. It was comical. It literally could not have gone better for Oregon. It was someone’s fantasy half for Oregon football. Oregon scored to open the second half in 90 seconds, 70 yards, 25-13. But FSU answers right back, it’s only 25-20. Reminding some of us of the game vs. Wisconsin on this very field three years prior, back and forth, lots of scoring, final stop wins. What metaphor does one use to describe what happened next? The wheels fell off the FSU wagon? Favorite historic collapse metaphor? Great city fire metaphor? There are no words to describe what happened except to simply state what happened. OREGON SCORED 34 UNANSWERED POINTS. THIRTY-FOUR! Florida State had turnovers on FOUR STRAIGHT POSSESSIONS! FOUR! It was truly unbelievable. And not just turnovers, but turnovers the Ducks turned into points immediately.

This had to be the most devastating half of football in the history of Florida State football. Turnover, touchdown. Turnover, touchdown. Turnover, touchdown. Turnover, touchdown. Devastating. Implosion. One offense scoring at will, the other dissolving into pure comedy. And the quick out and receiver screen you’d been watching all game? Yeah, they’re effective by themselves, sure, but they also set something else up. The quick out becomes the fly (Darren Carrington 56 yard touchdown). The receiver screen becomes the pump-an-go (Darren Carrington 30 yard touchdown). (And yea, I know I’m simplifying the play calls, but nobody wants X’s and O’s at this point in a 3,400 word article). It was only a matter when, not if. Scott Frost and Coach Helfrich biding their time, waiting for the defense to get eager. Waiting for that psychological moment where the defense is trying to do too much. Advantage taken.

Tony Washington then wrote the final chapter on the metaphor of his season with the scoop and score when the spirit of Dave Krieg (former Seahawk, occasionally threw the ball backwards) took over Jameis and he fumbled the ball backwards for a 58 yard scoop and score. The memes from that play never get old (here, take a break to watch them: Jameis Memes). Not ever. Awhile later Marcus rolled right and ran by two defenders 23 yards into the end zone like it was a Sunday stroll in the park. 52-20. Soon Jameis was pulled and Kani Benoit and Kenny Bassett were punishing what was left of the FSU defense. The Ducks put up 301 on the ground to FSU’s 180. Marcus’ QBR was 73.4, Jameis was 45.2. This was a complete and utter annihilation. Urban Meyer’s reaction to hearing the final score (59-20 by the way) sums it up (Urban's reaction). I don’t think the playoff committee expected blowouts after going through their process, they didn’t expect any team to score 34 unanswered points, they didn’t expect FSU, for all its struggles throughout the season to turn the ball over five times (and that doesn’t include the turnovers on downs).

In retrospect this was the Ducks championship game, the pinnacle of the season, the final peak of Everest. We won our conference having overcome too many injuries to list, destroyed the 2014 season’s poster boy for most hated program, and did it at the Rose Bowl in stunning fashion. But there were cracks in the hull of this speedboat. Ifo-Ekpre Olomu was out. Devon Allen was out. Darren Carrington was out. Bralon Addison, Pharoah Brown, and mini-van of offensive lineman. That’s three great receivers, a starting tight-end, a shutdown corner, and too many O-lineman to list, out for the National Championship game. The other cracks related to defensive scheme. It showed versus Florida State, but their failure to get TD’s early and turnovers in the second half masked those cracks. Their running game. Just take a look at their top two rushers. They combined for 183 rushes at a 6.8 yd per carry clip. That’s not a warning bell my friend, that’s a warning claxon, a siren. The Oregon D got gashed for big runs repeatedly. Again, it was masked, but it happened nonetheless. Just watch this play, it’s emblematic of the problem: Gap control?.

Next up, THE Ohio State, coming off a very impressive two game win-streak vs. Wisconsin (59-0) and Alabama (42-35). Ezekiel been going straight crazy yo, getting well over 200 yards in both games, against Wisconsin and Alabama! Them big boys!

Oregon started off brilliantly, 2:39 down the field for the touchdown, 7-0, Oregon football. But then what happens? Drops and can’t get off the field on 3rd and long with OSU throwing out of their own end zone: 3rd and long. The former happened again on a long throw a bit later and it was devastating, it could have been a TD, or at least led to one (Another drop). Watch it again, feel the pain again. Now tell me not having Bralon Addison, Darren Carrington, Pharoah Brown, and Devon Allen didn’t matter. Say it to my face.

The latter happened over and over again. Why? Because the Ducks kept rushing three down lineman on third down. They would not get enough pressure (do you blame them? It’s 3 on 5!) and eventually OSU would convert the first down. What does this lead to? A very very tired defense that’s been running around longer than normal on 3rd down. What does that lead to? This: Ezekiel. Over and over and over again. Sure, Oregon had miscues, too many penalties, too many three and outs, and gave up some big passing plays (tell me missing Ifo-Ekpre Olomu didn’t matter, say it to my face.). And I’m not taking away from what Ohio State did, I’m just pointing out what I believe was the root cause of the problem: three man defensive fronts. It worked against FSU because they had four straight turnovers in the second half of the Rose Bowl (despite their 183 on the ground and 6.8 yd. per carry average). It didn’t work against OSU and it made for a weakened and tired defense in the second half.

Now, I would like to point out that despite the final 42-20 score (and again, OSU earned every one of those 42 points), it was 21-20 OSU with one play left in the 3rd quarter. So with 1 second remaining in the 3rd quarter it was basically even. Now, the next play was a touchdown by Ezekiel, and they scored twice more in the fourth while we never scored again. And the cause, the root cause? Three down lineman leading to OSU converting lots of long (time wise and yardage wise) third down plays leading to a tired Oregon defense. I don’t blame the players at all, they played their hearts out and battled every play. It was the scheme, the play calling, by Don Pellum that I blame. That’s just one part of why we lost, as I mentioned there were plenty of other things that didn’t go right (and the injuries). But my firm belief is that was the root cause, the fundamental failure. The Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth. From the highest highs to the lowest lows as the saying goes. I’ve thought about writing this for a long time but it took six months before I could. To utterly destroy FSU in the Rose Bowl and then fall flat in the second half in the national championship game, man, it was hard. Worse than 2011, yes, worse than losing on a last second field goal.

Still, there’s another glimmer of light, maybe just a wobble, that we can make it back to the playoff’s this year, or at least the Rose Bowl (not part of the playoffs this year). We have a new QB, we’ve lost some great players to the NFL, but we’re still one of the most talented teams in the country. We’re playing in one of the top three conferences (I’ll wait until after the bowls to pass final judgement) and we’ve got Michigan State in week two on the road. If we lose to MSU, and it’s about 50/50 I’d say, then we’d probably need to win out in the PAC-12 to make the playoffs. It’s unlikely. You can dream if you’d like, but I prefer to be practical. If we beat MSU however, well, then things get more interesting. We can probably tolerate a loss to USC or ASU and still make it in. Maybe, just maybe, after the Michigan State game that wobble will get stronger, the Ducks will coalesce around their new QB, and they’ll march right back through the PAC-12 and right back into the playoffs. Right back to Everest. Here’s hoping fellow Duck fans. GO DUCKS.

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