The Miracle Run Comes to an End as Oregon Lets Down at Stanford

No matter how many Ducks tried, there was just no stopping Toby Gerhart.

After the last four weeks, and especially after last week’s blowout of USC, I thought we were invincible. I thought Chip Kelly would never let his team show up unprepared, I thought the defense was for real, and I thought going on the road wouldn’t matter.

But boy, oh, boy was I wrong. And Toby Gerhart was there to remind me; it felt like he personally punched me in the gut on every single one of his 38 dominating carries.

I got too caught up in the winning streak. I didn’t take Stanford seriously. Even if we had played Florida I thought the Ducks would have won going away. I was overconfident. I was naïve. I was cocky.

Not even for one second did the thought of losing cross my mind. I honestly wasn’t even worried until the end of the third quarter, when Gerhart ran in his third touchdown to put the Cardinal up by 17.

At that moment, to quote Kanye West, “It all falls down.”

I could feel the game, and more importantly the national championship slipping away. The Heisman hopes of Jeremiah Masoli and LaMichael James eroded, just like the defense on those 38 Gerhart carries.

On Bill Simmons’ Levels of Losing this game ranked as a combination of The Alpha Dog and The “This Can’t Be Happening”.

Simmons definition of The Alpha Dog perfectly depicts what happened: “It might have been a devastating loss, but at least you could take solace that a superior player made the difference in the end. Unfortunately, he wasn’t playing for your team… You feel more helpless here than anything.”

On Saturday, Toby Gerhart was the alpha dog. Nothing Oregon did could stop him. His longest run was for 31 yards, yet he compiled over 220. Every carry, the Maxwell Award semi-finalist would break two tackles and then fall forward for six yards. It was heart-wrenching. Every play I knew it was coming, and every play I felt more and more helpless.

And if that weren’t enough, there was definitely a “This Can’t Be Happening” feeling as well. “You’re supposed to win, you expect to win, the game is a mere formality. … Suddenly your team falls behind, your opponents are fired up, the clock is ticking and it dawns on you for the first time, “Oh, my God, this can’t be happening.”

Here are my thoughts on the game:

·    Stanford was far  and away the better team today. I still feel Oregon is better overall, but there is no question they played harder and wanted this game more than the Ducks.

·    All the injuries Oregon has suffered finally started to add up and take effect. Without WT3 and Willie Glasper, the defense was helpless against the pass.

·    Talmadge Jackson alone made Andrew Luck look like John Elway.

·    For the first time in over a month, the defensive line had no push. The Stanford O-Line did a tremendous job of opening holes and giving Luck time in the pocket to find the open receiver.

·    The Ducks had given up 58 points in their previous five games. Then in one game, give up 51 to the Cardinal.

·    Oregon had been giving up 4.6 yards per attempt to Pac-10 quarterbacks; Luck averaged 12.6 yards.

·    Just as important as Gerhart for Stanford, was Chris Owusu. The speed demon put up 197 yards on five returns, giving the Cardinal a short field and recapturing the momentum after every Oregon touchdown.

·    Oregon, meanwhile, had the third best average yards per kickoff return in the country coming into this game, but on nine returns, the Ducks averaged just 19 yards a piece.

·    On the bright side, Oregon still controls their own destiny to the Rose Bowl. If they can get past Arizona in Tuscon, which is no small feat for the Ducks, only a total collapse would keep Oregon out of Pasadena on New Year’s Day.

·    The San Jose Mercury’s Jon Wilner couldn’t have predicted Saturday’s outcome any better. As part of his reasoning for picking Stanford in a “close, entertaining, high-scoring victory”, Wilner said that the atmosphere at Stanford Stadium was a huge edge for the home team.

·    Wilner wrote: “Sure, Autzen Stadium’s a tough place to play with the non-stop, jet-engine noise. But just watch as the laid-back, Riesling-drinking, tailgating-among-the-eucalyptus-tree Stanford crowd lulls the Ducks to sleep.”

·    Wilner couldn’t have been more right. Stanford Stadium has one of the shittiest atmospheres in college football. If it weren’t for us Duck fans, you could have heard a pin drop.

·    This game felt exactly like the Purdue games the past two years, except for the comeback part.

·    I can’t remember the last time Oregon put up 570 yards and lost.

·    At least Nick Allioti took full responsibility for the loss.

·    Allioti looks exactly like John Abruzzi from Prison Break.

·    I hate Stanford’s band. They had no sync, no togetherness. It looked like 50 people wearing red jackets and trumpets wandered on the field and started running around and playing off-key music.

·    And what was with the two guys with fake horns pulling the wagon around the field? I’m still trying to figure that one out.

·    Stanford’s halftime show was even worse than our color guard. I feel like I should have brought pen and paper for notes. Total buzz kill.

·    If losing to Stanford wasn’t enough by itself, the Stanford alum sitting behind me was on his phone giving a play-by-play to his friend. If I weren’t in shock from the loss, I would have turned around and done something politically incorrect.

·    You know those Nike sport specific t-shirts? Well I saw one that said Stanford Studying. I wasn’t even surprised. Only at Stanford.

Oregon-Stanford: Expect the Ducks to Keep Rolling

It turns out that Masoli really is as good as he was in the Holiday Bowl last year. Good news for Oregon. Bad news for Stanford.

Stanford might have a nicer campus, smarter students, and even a better synchronized swimming team, but when it comes to football, there is no doubt that Oregon comes out on top.

The Ducks are coming off a big win, while the Cardinal have been home resting up during their open date.

This has pushed many pundits to put the Ducks on upset watch this Saturday, but like Rob Moseley from the Register-Guard wrote, “Is an obvious trap game actually a trap game if everybody in the country thinks it’s a trap game?”

Not with Chip Kelly at the helm.

Many coaches spew clichés, but Kelly has more than lived up to his of “one game at a time.” More importantly, the players have bought in 100 percent.

Left tackle Bo Thran echoed the intense focus that Kelly has preached to his team weekly, particularly this week after the tremendous high from beating USC last Saturday. Kelly isn’t worried about a letdown against the Cardinal.

“It’s a special team,” Kelly said. “Their mindset is really good right now. We all live in the moment.”

So what will it take for the Ducks to get their eighth straight win?

There’s no reason to believe that Stanford will be able to slow down the Ducks offense. Jeremiah Masoli and LaMichael James have emerged as legitimate stars, and Heisman candidates, since the turnaround against Cal in September.

Since the game, Masoli has been the epitome of efficiency, completing over 70 percent of his passes, while running for 7.5 YPC in his 29 attempts.

James, meanwhile, will have a chance to break the 1,000-yard mark for the season this weekend, which would be just the 16th time in Oregon history and the first time ever for a freshman. The diminutive speedster is 16th in the country in rushing yards and third in yards per carry.

James has exploded the last three games, each time surpassing the 150-yard plateau.

Defensively, I expect Nick Allioti to focus on stopping Toby Gerhart, a semifinalist for the Maxwell Award. Stack nine in the box and force Andrew Luck to beat you through the air.

Although Luck definitely has the potential to be a great quarterback, he hasn’t been able to win a game this season when he’s had to do it by himself. The five-star recruit and, of course, valedictorian from Texas is 0-3 in games where he has attempted 30 or more throws.

Bottom line, I expect the Ducks to come out with another win.  Playing on the road is tough, and Stanford is a much improved team under Jim Harbaugh, but Oregon just has too many weapons.

I expect the Cardinal to hang around in the first half, but then the Ducks will run away with it in the third quarter.

Prediction: Oregon 42, Stanford 17