I blame LeBron, D. Wade, Bosh and Carmelo for bringing an unholy vibe into the stadium. Clearly the sports gods were infuriated at the sight of these divas, and the Ducks bore the brunt. It's so unfair. The presence of these pampered losers proved too much to overcome.

Seriously, the worst loss in the history of the state of Oregon. Ironically, the booth overturned the 2-point conversion putting the Ducks within 3. I think they would have been better off knowing they had to get a touchdown on the last drive. They were rolling, but that last drive was too cautious, angling for overtime.

To lose to USC, a team playing free and easy since they had nothing to play for because of the bowl sanctions, is a pain that will never fade. USC takes Oregon out from a chance at a championship? That's way beyond brutal. I also blame USC alum Kari at Blue Oregon for screwing up our karma.

But speaking of shaky politics, the Ducks could have been denied anyway so that Alabama and LSU could treat the nation to another 9-6 overtime, thrill-fest. Or some other combination of teams.

It wasn't a lock that the Ducks went to the Big Game with one loss, although they clearly are the most entertaining team and if they had rolled USC, it would have been tough to say no. The Ducks certainly have a greatness aspect. They happen to have De'Anthony Thomas who appears to be the Miles Davis of college football right now.

Oh well. A few weeks ago I thought LaMichael James was done for the year - maybe ever - when he dislocated his elbow. I was very surprised that he came back.

It was just plain bad luck that his elbow got hit right where it hurts most and he coughed up the football on the 5 yard line just before half. But it is quite a testament to the young man that he was even out there, after his elbow dislocated like a turkey leg torn off this Thanksgiving.

The Ducks did not execute that well, at times even choking, but nobody can question the overall heart they showed against USC. I just wish the nation could have seen this team again in a championship game.

Sigh. For the way it unfolded, I'd call this the worst loss in the State's History. The 13 missed Blazer shots were in LA. Any others like Detroit beating the Blazers here for the championship did not draw you into the notion that just maybe, a storybook ending was at hand. A cruel, nightmare-inducing loss. And to USC. Ooh, it's too painful.

I'm just glad I have my Philadelphia Eagles to fall back on...oh, wait.

Wha?...hummm...oh well....
At least I had a nice little nap.

SC is the perfect foil to the Ducks and the reason they would have gotten their butts kicked in a rematch with LSU:

SC has the speed to match the Ducks speed, but a whole lot more beef up front. That is the recipe for successful duck hunting.

If it wasn't for the two lucky late-game turnovers, this game would have been more like 47-20

I loved the gold chain taht the young student athlete was wearing in the linked tape.

Amazing that UO students all can afford to wear such s nice jewelry.

Certainly it can't be some special football-player-only reward from an over zealous booster, or from the young scholar athlete's extensive savings from his part time summer job.

C'mon NCAA, wake up. IMHO, just another example of the apparent massive cheating in the *UCKS athletic programs.

So glad to see yet another Norethwest team holding up the "Losing Tradition" in Oregon and Washington.
Don't be surprised if the sorry OSU Beavers give them a struggle in the Civil War game.

Same Same...
It was exactly! the same 40+ years ago. Then the "student" athletes got the money as well as the "privilege" of putting their test and term papers in a separate pile on the prof's desk. Of course now those "student" athletes get a whole separate building for their "studies" at Nike U.
*UCKS is correct!

Haters: We're talking about the game of college football here. Some of us think it is amazing. I think there's another comment thread somewhere specifically devoted to academically oriented folks complaining about the spectacle of it all.

Ducks had no shot at the national title anyway so long as LSU stays on top. BCS would not allow a rematch game. If and only if LSU lost would they have had a shot and even then it would of been a slim shot.

At least the student athletes have their excellent education to fall back on?

How snarky can you get? I dare say De'Anthony would do better in your class than you would on his football field.

I'm not pretending to play on his field. He is most definitely pretending that he goes to college.

Thomas needed to be sharper in his passing game. As Canzano pointed out in the O today, the defensive secondary also really missed Cliff Harris in this one. Frankly, the Ducks program looks a lot like the USC program under Pete Carroll. Tons of speed and athleticism and an overflowing stable of running backs. Its not surprising the teams were actually pretty evenly matched last night. The Ducks just didn't execute that well, and didn't have an answer for Barkley and Lee (who looked like a young Jerry Rice). It was a great game, despite the outcome. At least the Wahoos won.

Amen Jack!
@Wayne Bo; I don't care about college sports because they are, just a precursor to pro sports. They should be called what they are "farm teams for the pros".
The special treatment for college players with regard to achedemic subjects demeans the work of real full time students and should be stopped.

I'm just looking for something real on TV. College football is a scandal-ridden mess, but there are moments when the human spirit soars and it is real. Baylor vs. Oklahoma for example.

If I could get the same thrill from a knowledge bowl, I would be right there.

Oh, and portraying college academics as some bastion of purity is a joke. De'Anthony Thomas earned his way onto the field last night with his ability. I don't think George W. Bush earned his way into Yale.

"The special treatment for college players with regard to achedemic subjects demeans the work of real full time students and should be stopped."

I'm no Duck fan, and not that into football, other than a good excuse to get together with friends...

But I think everybody can agree with the above statement.

Maybe after we are done with OWS, and have solved World Hunger, we can tackle the problem of demeaning the work of real full time students, which must be stopped!

When I was a real full time student, I was repeatedly demeaned by my lack of proficiency in the skill of drinking beer through a 'beer bong'. I have never fully recovered...

You know what they call the person who graduates last in the class at medical school?
Doctor ...pa...dum!

Bill -

That old canard would be both funny and relevant were it not for goofballs like John Forbes Kerry, whose admission to Yale as an undergraduate, and his pathetic performance while a student, not so inferior to Shrub's.

I notice how so many of my fellow lefties had the sense to drop that one after Kerry's total GPI and grade transcript was finally released after Shrubs had been leaked by an Eli during the 2004 campaign.

I had the misfortune to make Mr. Kerry's acquaintance long long long ago when he was a fresh faced and very green Norfolk County Deputy DA. I was a prosecutor for another jurisdiction. The Norfolk DDA gig 'twas yet another government job for which Mr. Kerry was singularly unqualified, but Grandma bought it for him as a way station until the Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor's job was up for election. Fortunately for John, after Grandma Forbes died, his wives bought his jobs.

Pointing out the perceived intellectual failings of various politicians is seldom profitable. Every side has its pretty boy (and girl) dummies, who's parents' or spouse's money buys their entry.

Susanne Bonamicci anyone?

Here's a senior thesis for somebody out there: College academics has wasted over 20 times the money unfairly thrown at the college football programs of America in order to let in the undeserving offspring of rich, connected alumni.

Nonny, I singled out George W. Bush because he struck me as too dumb to attend Yale on his own merits. Now, I admit I was wrong to overlook his cheerleading skills but I was focusing more on his academic prowess.

What bothered me most was that he couldn't really talk for long without saying something outrageously stupid. He also seemed to exhibit zero intellectual curiosity.

I can't see slamming a system that gets De'Anthony Thomas
into college out of Crenshaw, if we don't also admit that there are lots of kids with no particular ability at all getting into colleges based on connections.

Just getting a kid out of a ghetto to play sports at some university doesn't necessarily mean he or she will contribute in a positive way to society as a whole, any more than allowing the undeserving of the 1% to buy their way in to the same college university will necessarily mean that the privileged will similarly contribute.
I object to the fantasy that either group is getting the education that was advertised to them. And the ultimate degree looses its achedemic value to those who worked, and went into debt, and studied to graduate.
Once again those in the middle get the shaft.

"The world is changing, papa." -- Chava to Tevye, from Fiddler on the Roof

Consider:

...there's never been a better time than 2011 to get out of college football, a corrupted, nonsensical sport with no real moral vision of itself, or at least none that can prevent a constant conference-hopping TV cash grab at the expense of unpaid athletes, many of them teenagers, most all of them with no professional future.

I'm not sure any serious academic institution can even co-exist at these cross-purposes anymore....

Gene Collier, at http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11324/1191318-150-0.stm

AND

Sports' entitlements foster evil
By Gene Collier, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Nov. 17, 2011)
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11321/1190529-150-0.stm

Notable excerpt:

The locker room, maybe you've noted recently, can be a sinister place.

Not every locker room, just too many.

Don't know what makes it that way precisely, maybe the testosterone, maybe the smell, maybe the temperature, maybe the competitive nature of raw jocularity, maybe the twisted sense of entitlement, maybe 100 other things.

Nick Pappas started finding himself in locker rooms a long time ago, first as a college hockey player, then as a coach, later as a counselor. For 25 years....By the time he started his doctoral dissertation at Ohio State, he had interviewed, he guesses, 142 college and pro athletes in five sports -- baseball, basketball, football, wrestling and hockey.....

"The Dark Side of Sports: Exposing the Sexual Culture of Collegiate and Professional Athletes," is the result of 12 years of Pappas' work on the sometimes stunningly unsettling sense of life in those locker rooms.

"My findings reveal that, based on interviews with players who competed from the 1960s, '70s, '80s, and right up through 2010, that there is rampant sexual deviance and aggression that's been part of that culture going back 45 years.

"There is no sign that it's slowing down. It's kept in the closet. There are sexual predators in the athletic culture."

Yeah, he's bringing it.

DeAnthony may not sound very "educated" at this point, but he is 18 years old, he is from a pretty rough area in Los Angels, everyone who dealw with him seems to think that he is a nice young man (as opposed to some of the other more educated sounding Ducks who are also girlfriend-beaters, dope-smoking reckless drivers, and burglars), and if he is still talking this way when he is 22 and has finished four years at the U. of O., then perhaps you have a point.

finished four years at the U. of O.

Stop it, you're killing me.

Don't be so sure Jack cannot handle himself on the field better than this guy can handle himself in Jack's class. Not only is Bojack looking fit but he's tough enough to bang heads. I took Jack's class. For many it was rough. I saw at least one guy break down in tears. Saw another guy blatantly cheat and Jack snatch his pencil away. Scary stuff! :-)

After watching the video I don't see this kid as coming off too stupid. This was the speech of a perfectly normal teenager.
If you really want to be shocked and dismayed check out the Facebook writings of any 16-18 year old person. Barely literate. Hardly can be called English.
I've heard that each generation has a slightly higher IQ than the preceding, and this stat has held true for several generations. I know it is true that the older generation generally thinks the younger is lazy, stupid and lacking in ambition. This attitude is common throughout history.