We’re Wearing Yellow Now

Because you only wear black when you’re in mourning, and the Ducks ain’t dead.

Okay, so that Georgia game was whatever. And I’ll get into it before I talk about the Eastern Washington Fighting Kupps, but before I get to any of that, you all need to join me on a tortured trip down memory lane.

Last night on Big 10 Network—the future home of Duck football—they were replaying the 2016 Oregon-Nebraska game. Now, I had happily packed that point-chasing-deep-in-middle-America disaster of a game far into the back of my brain, but something came over me and I just had to tune back in, just to feel something.

I was reminded that Royce and Devon Allen (the man they disqualified for being too fast) were both injured for all the key moments of this game, and Prukop, Charles Nelson, and Kani Benoit actually played pretty damn well in their absence.

Sure, Helf had us playing a wild game of two-point conversion math basically from the start of the game, and yeah we blew a 20something-7 lead to Mike “Hip, Hip, Hooray” Riley, but geez our offense still kind of looked as electric as ever.

There was a sequence leading up to a long Kani Benoit TD where we pretty much started a drive with 1st & 20—remember, this was one of those terminally penalized Duck teams—and Prukop was running for his life again and again, but he just kept making stuff happen.

And then it happened.

The part of the game I had especially blocked out of my brain, but felt compelled to remind you all about: we very very very much had a chance to score a game-winner.

After our Brenden Schooler-led defense let the Corn Stars score the go-ahead touchdown, Prukop stormed down the field and unleashed a bomb in Chuck The Duck’s direction.

Just watch for yourself:

I don’t bring up this random 2016 game just to circle back and take a cheap shot at Helf or Prukop—I actually think this game even made me just about as nostalgic as one could possibly be for a 4-8 season.

I’m unearthing this moment in Oregon history because after I rewatched this last night, it’s all I could think about.

I woke up in seventeen different cold sweats imagining a world where a strong Nebraskan breeze kicked up right in that moment, lifting the ball ever-so-slightly into Charles Nelson’s outstretched hands.

But I know now that my brain had an instinct for self-preservation, and after it watched that game happen live it immediately instructed itself to never, ever let me relive that play again.

But then—much like with everything else that’s messy in the world of college football—the Big 10 Conference’s lucrative television deal busted through all of that just to cause me harm all over again.

Alright, now that we’re all hurting together,  let’s talk about another game that brain has already begun to thoroughly erase from my memory!

The Ducks got properly shellacked by a basically perfect Georgia team last week and I was there to see it all happen.

I didn’t drown myself in Waffle House afterwards, however.

Sure, that game sucked. And yeah, I sure have a lot of questions about how I should begin to reset my expectations for Dan Lanning’s debut season—especially on the defensive side of the ball—but I’m not in open panic mode.

A lot has been said about the overwhelming size of UGA and whether or not they simply “have better players” as Kirby Smart said after the game. To those charges I say: “sure, maybe, whatever.” But honestly they just looked like this was Week 7 for them.

Credit to Smart and their whole staff because they clearly made perfect use of their spring and summer practices leading into the season. Not a single guy was out of position; no frantic, pre-play communication; not even a hair out of place on the pretty little head of Stetson “The Lineup” Bennett.

The way that team is playing right now, they make a well-oiled machine look like it needs a trip to Jiffy Lube. And I pray for a the dozen other teams that will have to stand up to them week after week as they just continue to get perfect-er.

As for the obligatory Statement about Oregon QBs, I’ll just reiterate what I wrote about Bo Nix like three weeks ago:

At his best, Nix has been an electric talent under center. He scrambles around, makes the tough plays, and has a reasonably talented arm. At his worst, he can be a bit of a turnover magnet and sometimes his desire to make that hard play can come back to bite him in the ass.

Copy. Paste. We move on.

With Eastern Washington coming to town tomorrow, one can only hope that it’s one of those true “Get Right” games. I’d love to see the Ducks exercise some of those ATL demons and just put a pounding on an objectively weaker team.

But I really don’t think we ended up learning a lot about our team last week, and that’s the toughest pill to swallow about a loss like that.

0-1 is the same whether you lose by 1 or 100, but sheesh, I still can’t tell you if Georgia is just that good, or if Oregon is just that bad.

For the record, I’m still leaning in the direction of “Conference Title Game Berth” rather than “Jimmy Kimmel LA Bowl” but I learned so little about this 2022 team in their first outing that my brain is clearly looking to occupy itself with Prukop underthrows rather than the here and now.

So all I really want out of tomorrow’s home opener is for something even remotely awesome that can pull me back into the present, and can help Dan start his first season in earnest.

No score prediction this week. Just hoping we go for two at appropriate times.

Go Ducks.