THE UNLIKELIEST SEASON, OR: GOOOOO DUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKS!!!!!!!

For tonight and probably tonight only, there is no quarterback controversy. One or all of Oregon's QBs could be playing in whatever BCS game the Ducks are headed to — Clemens' status remains TBA. Tonight, no one man carried the game, nor did one man carry the Fighting Ducks throughout this season. This was a group effort. Which also says something about Clemens' NFL prospects ... but as I said already, tonight there is no controversy.

And let's not forget, Oregon just went 10-1 a single season after missing out on their first bowl game in a decade or so. I hesitate to mention that Bellotti's been distracted, to say the least — as one Beaver fan tonight tried to pull out and taunt a Ducks fan with over at the (usually Beavers uninfested) bar in Arlington. (It was pathetic; OSU was down four touchdowns already by this point. And 11-year-old kids kept walking up to the loudest Beaver fan and buzzing their el cheapo plastic duck calls at him.) My point is: Bellotti's still running a strong program. Proof enough for me: our solitary loss was to the #1 team in the country.

Enough about the dadblamed season — how about that game, huh? Our backup quarterbacks trounced their backup. We were perfect in the red zone while their stubborn go-for-broke fourth down strategy failed gloriously. A box score that reads, quarter by quarter: 14-14-14-14. And controversy-wise, Dixon's 70% pass completion — compared to Leaf's 45% — tells me that Dixon is probably next year's starter. Especially if Kellen comes back for the bowl game.

And to anyone from Oregon State: Yeah, you beat us good last year, as you would be expected to at Burrito Stadium; we've each taken our own home games since 1997. Plus, last year was your season, and this one was ours. But we just upped the ante. Until then, I am proud that Oregon is responsible for you "State"-modified Oregonians not going to a bowl game this year.

° ° ° ° °
Now, on a sartorial note:

Are you like me? Are you having a hard time making up your mind about these new uniforms? Or just bewildered? It's fun having access to Nike's skunk works, but some of the ideas coming out of there are just a bit too goofy-futuristic. (Think Nike's streamlined-creampuff basketball shoes.) And I say this not just about the "hi-liter" unis but also too-frequent uni changes, and other gee-whiz stuff such as the reported Xbox in the locker rooms.

I digress. While I'm leaning thumbs-down, I do think I can see what Nike might have been gunning for:


Most deserving of comment, I think, is the new lettering on the large uniform numbers. What is that font? A "consumer freedom"-fighter I know suggested it was an old Mac font. Knowing a small bit about the world of typefaces, I'd say this was almost certainly a custom job, but I can see an old Print Shop-era Apple computer-font-like-thing going on. But also with sharp angles and abrupt diagonal moves that draw the eye — kind of a hieroglyphic, or maybe Aztec influence. Perhaps the irregular angles have a hidden purpose: to distract the opposing players as they set up for the snap. It's psychological warfare.

By some definitions, it's torture.


Same thing here. See those short, interlocking perpendicular gray stripes on the shoulders and the upper legs? Just like the pattern you'd find on an outdoor metal box or the running board of a large American truck. See? Nike is speaking to the subconscious reflexes of the opposing player: It hurts to run into metal. Better not hit this guy too hard.

You would agree that it does hurt to run into metal, right?


See the new back pocket "O" visible in the shot? I bet I know what this is about. See, when Jonathan Stewart or Terrence Whitehead (or egads, sometimes even Jordan Kent) are running away with the ball toward a touchdown and there's one last guy on his tail and losing ground, that player can see one more Oregon Ducks logo and is therefore more likely to think, The team that is crushing us right now is the Oregon Ducks.

Now that I think about it, maybe the ultimate point of the Casanova Xboxes was to keep players around the center a little longer each day. And indeed, isn't that a better use of their time than getting arrested for possession of less than an ounce of marijuana up around Skinner's Butte?

All the better: when you Google "Herman Ho-Ching" and Marijuana, the third result happens to be FLOG™ during the first of his 2 stints (thus far) at the O.C. that's not on Fox Thursdays. It's from a lengthy, informative and fair review of on-campus bathrooms, including the one at the Moshofsky Center:

You know that immense blimp hanger they put up next to Autzen Stadium? It's got a full sized practice field inside, and they let the football players and the drunken alumni run around inside? Well, it has the nicest bathroom on campus, I'm afraid. It's got those urinals that know when you're done pissing, every stall has its own reading light so that Herman Ho-Ching can see what he's doing (you know what I'm talking about), and the walls are decked out in green and yellow tiles. But what really hits you is the smell. This bathroom smells better than a spice rack. It's a delicate blend of cinnamon and lavender, and it just isn't fair. Damned athletes.

On the other hand, their toilet paper is rougher than ours. I guess to piss 'em off and give them that winning edge.

Sounds like Phil's doing, if you ask me.

P.S. — I just noticed that if you study the last 3 of the 4 photos, you can see it getting still foggier at Autzen. Nevertheless, not as foggy as it looked on TV. How often does the television network have to rely on field-level camera angles to show the majority of the action? I cannot recall. It didn't work, of course. You couldn't follow the ball in the near-whiteout conditions of the overhead shots, but nor could you tell whether a back was picking up a first down or returning to the line of scrimmage in many of the plays shot at ground level.

But I submit that this fact makes tonight's game all the more epic.

---

posted by WWB at 1:31 AM |