Happy Holiday Bowl
Also, please play football where you play football.
A wise pop punk band once said that every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.
With extraordinary prescience, clearly Semisonic* knew how the Playoff and Portal were going to turn the college football bowl season into a glorified preview of the next year.
*or was it Third Eye Blind?
In 2008-09, Bellotti’s final team beat up on Lyle Moevao and the Beavs, and then they steamrolled Dez Bryant’s Oklahoma State Cowboys in the once-storied Holiday Bowl.
As a young fan—still never having seen an Oregon Rose Bowl in my lifetime—that 10-3 season had me on top of the world.
In hindsight, the 2008 momentum absolutely catapulted the program towards everything that was coming next, but in that moment it might as well have been the apex of everything I was ever going to witness in my Duck lifetime.
That one victory in Qualcomm Stadium made me happy. I was happy.
Enter: Chip, Marcus, Natty’s, etc.; and then add in the vast external changes all around us in CFB, and that very same bowl game is being played tonight—in the outfield of a baseball stadium—and I basically have zero expectations at all.
With a few opt-outs and transfers, Oregon has a huge chance to see a bunch of young players in action. It’s a fun little taste test for 2023.
Without their offensive play-caller, they’ll undoubtedly have a fresh personality on that side of the ball—will that be good or bad?
And they’ll be facing a dynamic UNC offense and a hyped up quarterback, meaning that the defense will be once again dared to get stop(s).
Will they do it?
Like most of you, I’m just eager to see a full-strength Bo Nix out there. I missed that guy.
But thankfully, Nix seems to be buying whatever Will Stein is selling, and he’ll look to give us his last college try all over again next year.
Tonight could be the night where he battles Drake Maye and announces to the whole country that he is, in fact, having fun.
Dan Lanning sure thinks so:
“I expect to see him play some of his best football.”
I guess I’ll just go ahead and expect that too, Danny.
Tonight basically has a Spring-Game-With-A-Trophy vibe to it—with the added bonus of hitting the ever-important 10-win mark.
Half of the battle will be simply staying mentally engaged for a bowl game that has now dwindled in overall significance, and the other half will be scoring lots of points.
Keith Brown, I’m looking at you to get that last stop for us. Heck, go get two picks while you’re at it.
Also, Patrick Herbert is scoring a touchdown tonight—if only to show the city of San Diego what it’s like to see a Herbert finally score in their city.
Maybe we can erase the horrors of the last two bowl games and play so damn well that I go to sleep tonight feeling even a fraction of what I felt in 2008.
Maybe.
50-45, Bo Nix.
Go Ducks.