Breaking News: Winning A Title Is Hard

The Big Ten champions have more work to do.

Your Oregon Ducks are Big Ten Champions.

That should really be my headline.

We should’ve had the chance to spend more than eleven-ish hours relishing the fact that a team from the lowly Pacific-12 Conference just kicked down the doors of the super-scary Big Ten and took no prisoners.

But we live in different times, and you could hear folks jockeying for College Football Playoff position before the confetti even hit the ground on Saturday night.

Many have been quick to point out—and they’ve been doing it all year—that the fifth and sixth seeds in the playoff appear to be more preferential draws in terms of opponents, future game locations, and overall “path” to the national title.

Oregon is the best team in the country, and they’ve earned the number one overall seed. Their reward is a spot in the Rose Bowl Game on New Year’s Day. They’ll await the winner of a December 21st game between Tennessee and Ohio State.

Compare that to Penn State—the Big Ten title game loser—who will play a first-round home game against the 11-seed SMU Mustangs, and then the winner of that game will play one of our earliest victims, Boise State.

On top of that, Texas (the SEC loser) hosts a 3-loss Clemson team, and would have a possible quarterfinal showdown with upstart Arizona State.

Somehow, this new college football playoff system—which was allegedly founded to “finally” crown a “real” champion—has invented more ways to reward more losers than ever before.

I want to be clear, I don’t actually have a problem with the path that’s been laid out in front of Oregon, I’m just doing a little thing us keyboard clackers like to call, “setting the stage.”

First of all, Oregon has spent all season chasing after this specific first-round bye, in this prestigious and familiar venue.

They controlled what they could control, and they’ll be rewarded with nearly a month of rest and as much of a home-like environment as they could ever dream to get.

And in terms of our potential opponents, did we not just witness an Ohio team in a total free-fall after their loss to Michigan?

Ryan Day was staring into the void in the middle of the Horseshoe. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s fallen behind on his Just For Men regimen at this point.

This is the guy we’re so worried about?

Sure, I had hoped that Oregon would never have to see their elite receivers again—and after giving up nearly 300 rushing yards on Saturday, I’d rather not see their running backs again, either.

However, we beat Ohio the last time they flew out west, and that was 1) when we were Jordan Burch-less, 2) before they lost yet another starting offensive lineman, and 3) before Michigan broke them.

Even if Ohio were to make it past Tennessee—which is not a guarantee in the slightest—we’d still have a huge advantage in preparation, rest, and just overall being a better team than they are.

And if Tennessee manages to win, they’ll have been on the road in back-to-back weeks. Their running back, Dylan Sampson (#6), kind of scares me, but I would love to see our d-line chase after their still-inexperienced QB, Nico Iamaleava (#8).

And if we make it past Pasadena, we’d likely get to play a Texas team that hasn’t beaten a single good team all year.

And then maybe we’d face a quarterback-less Georgia team in our final game.

As Dan Lanning put it: “What an opportunity for us.”

But that’s a whole heckuva lot of hypotheticals, and football games aren’t won hypothetically.

We’ve always known that we were going to face multiple good teams on the way to a national title, and Dan has been building this ship for that exact mission.

His offense looks ready.

Dillon Gabriel’s unit just capped off back-to-back games scoring 45+ points, and they did so thanks to the trusty hands of the best football player in the Nix family, Tez Johnson.

Tez was immaculate. He caught 11 catches on 12 total targets for 181 yards and a touchdown.

He’s an all-time Duck, and I can only imagine the kinds of clutch plays and memories he’ll make for us in Pasadena.

Speaking of clutch, can we talk about T-Ferg?

On yet another must-have 4th & long, DG rolled out and threw it to the one dude that every. single. person. knew he was going to throw it to.

And just like the Wisconsin game, the two best friends found each other for the biggest reception of the game.

Also, it almost feels like a completely different game at this point, but Kenyon Sadiq’s early explosion was an absolute revelation for an offense that struggled to score even one tight end touchdown for most of the year.

And all of that production came without any contributions from WR2, Evan Stewart.

We know that any given night can belong to any of these receivers, and my cousin Michael tells me that Stewart will have another big night (or three) before the year is done.

I believe ya, Mike.

The whole night was a testament to how many more bullets we have left in our offensive arsenal heading down the stretch, and that was reassuring to see after that short mid-season stint of unrealized potential.

But then there was some, uh, less-than-reassuring stuff…

Penn State’s offensive line pulled an Irish Republican Army and disappeared the center of our defensive line—and pretty much our whole front seven.

I already mentioned that PSU rushed for 292 yards—the most by any Oregon opponent this year by country mile—and they also only gave up one sack.

Even in moments where Oregon managed to collapse the pocket, Drew Allar would scamper straight up the middle for what felt like a million yards, but was actually just 54 yards (10.8 per carry, for what it’s worth).

Not a linebacker in sight, just vibes.

Penn State clearly had a lot of fun with their pre-snap motions and took advantage of our confusion.

Every single snap was a jump-scare for me. I had no clue who was getting the ball, and I’m not sure our defense did either.

And yes, the Nittany Lions offense was uniquely tricky, but I’ve taken a step back and realized that we’ve given up 30+ points to the three best teams we’ve played all year.

Our defense has certainly made huge plays against every level of competition—see: Saturday’s two huge interceptions—but they’ve only played their most complete defensive games against Purdue-level competition (plus the Illinois game).

The Ducks are about to play exclusively Good™ teams for the rest of the season, and the Big Ten Championship humbled me towards a more grounded reality about our defense:

We might not be Great™. We might only be Really Good™.

I’m more than happy to be proven wrong, but we were so out of sorts Saturday night that it left me feeling the most mortal I’ve felt all year.

But lucky for us, I don’t think there are any other Great™ offenses out there, either.

And our latest Heisman Trophy finalist looks poised to keep scoring points and win a couple more shootouts if he needs to.

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Oregon won their first of many Big Ten titles on Saturday night, and they’ll look to take home even more hardware real soon.

Some folks might cry foul about the playoff, but Joey “Screwed-By-The-BCS” Harrington would likely remind us that at least this format gives us a chance at the title.

It’s like Dan Lanning says:

“They can’t deny you if you just win.”

Go Ducks.