30 Years of Almosts, What-Ifs, and Heartbreak
A modern history of Oregon football
On New Year’s Day, Oregon’s football team will kick off 2025 in the Rose Bowl. They will do so as the only undefeated team in the country and the number one team in the nation and yet they are listed as an underdog against a 10-2 Ohio State team they have already beaten once this season. None of this should be surprising to an Oregon fan as the last 30 years have given us all kinds of reasons to keep our guard up and not let an irrational hope take us too far.
ESPN has some sort of formula they refer to as their “Football Power index” which gives Oregon a 7.7% chance of winning the national title, which is lower odds than they give to Texas (27.2%), Notre Dame (20%), Ohio State (17.3%), Georgia (12.9%), and Penn State (12.1%). Only Boise State (1.4%) and Arizona State (1.3%) have worse odds than the Ducks. If we take this mysterious formula at face value, that means Oregon has about a 92.3% chance of ending the season with some sort of massive heartbreak.
That’s not the energy I want to bring into the New Year. I want to wake up on January 1st with my heart full of gratitude for the 395 days since Oregon last lost a football game and I want to embrace the dangerous hope that this season can end differently than every season before it. But to do that, I’m going to have to lay down on the couch next to my sports therapist and unpack 30 years worth of serious baggage.
Let me start by acknowledging that Oregon fans of previous generations, like my father or my grandfather, probably have much more measured expectations when it comes to Oregon football. Oregon didn’t finish a season ranked in the final AP poll from 1949 to 1993 and they didn’t play in a single bowl game from 1964 to 1988. Wait, that’s not right. Oregon played in one bowl game during that stretch, a 0-0 tie with Oregon State to end the 1983 season which will forever be remembered as “The Toilet Bowl”.
Rich Brooks is the man credited with bringing the Oregon program to national relevance. The playing surface at Autzen Stadium is named Rich Brooks Field in his honor. Yet during his first 17 seasons, from 1977-1993, Brooks had a win/loss record of 82-105-4. It says a lot about the Oregon football program that a guy could win 43% of his games for 17 seasons and keep his job. You’d have a hard time finding a middle school coach today that would keep a football coach around for 17 years with that kind of record.
Yet everything changed for Oregon thanks to the team’s magical run to the Rose Bowl in 1994 (a magical season that started 1-2 after early-season drubbings by Hawaii and Utah). To give you an indication of how much things changed during that one season, just check out this comparison:
1958-93:
.448 win percentage
0 Top 25 Finishes
0 Conference Titles
1994-2024:
.729 win percentage
20 Top 25 Finishes
10 Conference Titles
As Oregon experienced more and more success, it also created opportunities for Oregon fans to experience losses in new ways. I’ve spent way too much time thinking about this, but I think there’s about fifteen different ways a football team can break your heart. Or at least fifteen different ways that the Oregon football team has broken my heart. Here’s a roughly chronological history of how these fifteen types of losses have shaped Oregon’s history:
“Happy to be There”
When Oregon lost to undefeated Penn State 38-20 in the ‘95 Rose Bowl, they were the definition of a “Happy to be There” team. Oregon hadn’t been to the Rose Bowl in 36 years and no Oregon fan had serious hopes of beating Penn State in that game. They were just thrilled to be tied for a minute late in the third quarter after a spectacular catch by Cristin McLemore. (And I do mean “tied for a minute” as the Nittany Lions retook the lead 61 seconds later.)
The Happy to be There loss is by far the easiest type of loss for a fan to process but the more success a program experiences, the harder they are to come by. Indiana’s recent playoff loss at Notre Dame was absolutely a “Happy to be There” loss. I can’t remember the last “Happy to be There” loss for Oregon and this year’s team is not eligible for this category.
After Rich Brooks jumped at the chance to coach in the NFL and MIke Bellotti was promoted to head coach, the “Happy to be There” era continued for a few years. In 1995, the Ducks went 9-2 in the regular season, lost to Colorado 38-6 in the Cotton Bowl and pretty much everyone was in agreement that it was a great season. Noteworthy alum Phil Knight was so inspired by Oregon reaching a New Year’s bowl game for the second year in a row that he reached out to Coach Bellotti about how he could best support the program going forward. When a 32-point loss inspires a bazillionaire alum to start writing checks, it’s the definition of “Happy to be There”.
With today’s expectations, a season like 1997 would be considered a dumpster fire as the Ducks finished with a 7-5 record and tied for 7th in the Pac-10 conference. But I remember thinking 1997 was a great year. That was the year Oregon upset 6th-ranked Washington at Husky Stadium (Oregon’s third upset of a ranked Washington in a span of four years) and that was also the year Oregon beat Air Force 41-13 in the Las Vegas Bowl. In 2024, the idea of celebrating a Las Vegas Bowl win over Air Force as a monumental achievement seems pretty silly, but this was the first Oregon bowl win I can remember watching. I have no memory of the 1989 Independence Bowl win over Tulsa and was not alive for the 1963 Sun Bowl win over SMU. So yeah, beating Air Force in the Las Vegas Bowl was a huge deal in 1997!
“The Moral Victory”
In 1998, expectations started to shift a bit. This is the first year that I can remember in which the games Oregon lost stand out more than the games Oregon won. In mid-October, the Ducks took a 5-0 record into a highly anticipated matchup with 2nd-ranked UCLA and a showdown between Akili Smith and Cade McNown, two of the best quarterbacks in the country. It was the first game on the West Coast that was visited by ESPN’s College Gameday and it did not disappoint. The Ducks ended up losing 41-38 in overtime.
This was a classic “Moral Victory”. Oregon fans didn’t necessarily expect Oregon to win the game, but it also wasn’t going to be satisfying if they got beat by three touchdowns. Having Oregon match wits with one of the best teams in the country for four quarters was empowering, having Akili Smith convert a 4th-and-long was inspiring, and a late injury to star running back Reuben Droughns was devastating.
I’m trying to imagine a scenario in which this year’s team could get a “Moral Victory Loss”, but I think Dan Lanning would be the first one to say there is no such thing.
“The Quarterback Meltdown”
Oregon entered the 2000 Civil War ranked 5th in the nation with a 9-1 record. Oregon State entered as the 8th ranked team in the nation with an identical 9-1 record. Had the Ducks beaten the Beavers, they would have clinched a Rose Bowl berth at worst and would have been in the conversation for a spot in the national title game. The Ducks lost to the Beavers 23-13 which isn’t so bad if you are just looking at the final score. What that final score doesn’t tell you is that Joey Harrington, who had been so clutch for Oregon all season, had six turnovers, including five interceptions. Oregon fans were now introduced to a new type of loss: “The Quarterback Meltdown”.
This was the first Oregon loss that I can remember which had a nightmarish quality to it. Nevertheless, Oregon bounced back to beat Texas in the Holiday Bowl, which was a whole different level than beating Air Force in the Last Vegas Bowl. The 2000 Ducks won 10 games for the first time in school history, finished in the top ten for the first time in school history, and would enter 2001 with billboard-sized expectations.
“The Catastrophic Collapse”
Oregon kicked off the 2001 season with massive expectations and decided to inflate those expectations even more by putting up a massive billboard in New York City featuring a photo of Harrington with the caption “Joey Heisman”. The Ducks lived up to those expectations by winning their first six games, before losing to Stanford in one of the craziest games in school history.
Oregon had a 42-21 lead entering the fourth quarter, but managed to squander the lead thanks to two blocked punts by Stanford and a successful onside kick by Stanford. With the score tied late in the fourth quarter, a Stanford defender intercepted a deflected pass, setting the Cardinal up for the winning score. Oregon had surely blown leads before this, but never had an Oregon team blown a lead with this much at stake. It was their first meaningful “Catastrophic Collapse”.
There have been several other Oregon losses that would fit this category, most notably the 2015 Alamo Bowl loss to TCU (in which the Ducks led 31-0 at halftime and lost 47-41 in triple overtime) and the 2022 Platypus Cup to Oregon State (in which the Ducks led 31-10 late in the third quarter and ended up losing 38-34 without the Beavers throwing a single pass during the entirety of their comeback).
The collapse against TCU and the collapse against Oregon State hold a different place in the memories of Oregon fans because they came at the end of the season, but the 2001 loss collapse against Stanford literally cost Oregon a spot in the national title game. Instead of playing Miami for the national championship, the Ducks went to the Fiesta Bowl and throttled Colorado 38-6, finishing the season 11-1 and ranked 2nd in the nation. An incredible season, but also one that causes Oregon fans to wonder what might have been,
“The Tailspin”
After flirting with an undefeated season in 2001, Oregon started to assume a different place in the college football hierarchy, but they struggled to maintain consistency. Four times in a five year stretch Oregon had a season go completely off the rails with several losses blending together.
2002: Started the year 6-0 and ranked 6th in the nation. Lost a 45-42 shootout to Arizona State and completely fell apart after that with six losses in their last seven games.
2003: Started the year 4-0 with a shocking upset over 3rd-ranked Michigan. Lost four of their next five including a 55-16 loss to Washington State, a 59-14 loss to Arizona State, and a 42-10 loss to Washington.
2004: Started the year in tailspin mode with three losses in their first four weeks, lowlighted by a home defeat in their season opener to a dreadful Indiana team. The Ducks rallied to win four in a row in the middle of the season, but then finished the year on a three-game losing streak with a 50-21 loss capping the only losing season in Mike Bellotti’s tenure. A rare “Multi-Tailspin” season.
2005: After three seasons with a “Tailspin”, 2005 was a pleasant and delightful surprise. The Ducks went 10-1 in the regular season with their only loss coming to top-ranked USC featuring Reggie Bush. They rallied for a couple wins after losing quarterback Kellen Clemens to injury and lost the Holiday Bowl by a field goal to an Oklahoma team featuring Adrian Peterson. Considering they jumped out to a 13-0 lead on the Trojans and they were juggling multiple backup quarterbacks in the loss to Oklahoma and considering that Reggie Bush and Adrian Peterson were two of the best football players in college football history, I think both of these losses qualify as “Moral Victories”. What a breath of fresh air that 2005 team was.
2006: Started the year 4-0 thanks in part to a thrilling upset over Oklahoma. Followed up the hot start by losing 6 of 9 games, including a 38-8 loss to BYU in the Las Vegas Bowl that almost drove Mike Bellotti to retirement.
“The Injured Quarterback”
In mid-November 2007, Oregon was 8-1 and ranked 2nd in the nation. They had beaten Michigan by 32 points in the Big House back in September and they were coming off back-to-back wins over top ten teams (#9 USC and #6 Arizona State). Quarterback Dennis Dixon was considered the Heisman front runner. There were all kinds of irrational hopes starting to take hold of Oregon fans that season. Then Dennis Dixon blew out his knee on a Thursday night in Tucson and Oregon’s national championship hopes crumpled to the turf as well.
This seems like as good of a place as any to point out that none of these categories are meant to be exclusionary. A game can fall into several different categories. For example, that Alamo Bowl loss to TCU where Oregon blew the 31-0 lead? Well, quarterback Vernon Adams went down with an injury just before halftime so that was the rare “Catastrophic Collapse” that was fueled by an “Injured Quarterback”. Oregon has had other seasons in which an “Injured Quarterback” led directly to a “Tailspin” (like Willie Taggart’s 2017 season when he went 6-1 with Justin Herbert as the starter and 1-6 when Herbert was injured) or an “Injured Quarterback” created the proper circumstances for a “Moral Victory” (like the 2008 loss to Boise State in which Oregon’s fourth string freshman quarterback almost pulled off a comeback).
“The False Start”
There are few things more disheartening for a football fan than a season opening loss. There are rough season openers which stand out:
The aforementioned loss to Indiana to launch the 2004 campaign.
Chip Kelly’s head coaching debut in 2009 in which the Ducks lost 19-8 at Boise State in a game in which their offense didn’t even cross midfield until after halftime
The 2019 opener against Auburn in which the Ducks surrendered a 21-6 lead and gave up the go-ahead touchdown with 9 seconds left in the game.
Dan Lanning’s first game as head coach in 2022, in which Oregon lost to Georgia 49-3.
The one silver lining to a “False Start” is that there is time for the team to turn things around. While that 2004 team went on to have a pretty miserable season, the rest of these teams all bounced back to win double-digit games and a couple of them won the conference and played in the Rose Bowl. So while it seems in the moment like the season is over before it began, that is rarely the case.
“The Weird Finish”
Sometimes a close game is decided by a play that is so strange that it becomes the only thing that people remember about it. The most extreme version of this was the Stanford vs Cal game where the band came on the field prematurely as Cal was somehow executing several laterals to return a kickoff for a touchdown. Another extreme version of this would be the “Kick Six” in the Iron Bowl when Auburn returned a missed field goal 100 yards for the game-winning score as time expired.
Oregon hasn’t suffered a defeat on that scale of weird, but when their 2010 team played Auburn for the national championship, the game was decided on a fairly unorthodox play. With the game tied and just over two minutes on the clock, Auburn running back Michael Dyer appeared to run for a routine six-yard gain before being tackled by Oregon linebacker Eddie Pleasant. Here’s how Brent Musburger and Kirk Herbstreit described what happened next:
Musburger: “Dyer, the freshman, is wrestled down at the 46-yard line. Pleasant…
Herbstreit: “He’s up!”
Musburger: “and he gets back up! Dyer gets back up! Was he not on the ground? Did he stay on top of Pleasant? The Ducks are saying ‘wait a minute, he was down’. But everybody is moving up there.”
Herbstreit: “Brent, I think he would have stopped running if it weren’t for his own sideline.His entire sideline told him to keep going.”
Musburger: “Thirty-seven yards. Let’s take a look at this…From that look, I did not see a knee hit the ground.”
A few plays later, Auburn hit a game-winning field goal. Michael Dyer now lives on as one the great heroes in Auburn history while the “Michael Dyer run” forever haunts Oregon.
Here’s the thing about this play. It’s not that uncommon. Oregon’s Maurice Morris scored a long touchdown against Colorado in the 2002 Fiesta Bowl on a similar play. In last night’s Holiday Bowl, BYU appeared to score a touchdown against Colorado on a similar play, but replay determined his wrist hit the ground. This sort of thing happens in football and will happen more and more as players are hyper concerned about getting penalized for an increasing variety of unnecessary roughness.
It’s not an especially uncommon occurrence, but to have a play like this decide a national championship creates a lack of closure for the losing fan base. Had Michael Dyer just ripped off a 37-yard run because his line opened a huge hole, that would be easier to swallow. To be clear, Auburn very likely would have won the game even if Eddie Pleasant would have been able to complete that tackle. I would just like to visit the alternate universe where Auburn has a 2nd-and-4 from their own 46-yard line with two minutes to play because I’m curious how that would have played out.
“We Dug Ourselves a Hole”
I’ve thought long and hard about it but I don’t have a better name for this. I’m thinking of a particular kind of loss where one team lets an opposing team jump out to an early lead, then puts together a valiant comeback attempt, only to fall short at the end. It’s the type of game that leads a fan to say things like “We dug ourselves too deep of a hole” or “We just couldn’t quite reel them in”. This is a unique type of game in that the winning team leaves the stadium knowing good and well they just stole a game from a superior team.
The best (or worst) example of this came late in the 2011 season. The Ducks were 9-1, ranked 4th in the country, hosting 18th-ranked USC. The week before Oregon went on the road and beat an undefeated Stanford team led by Andrew Luck 53-30, so there was probably a bit of a hangover effect in play here (we will cover that category later). The Ducks trailed 38-14 late in the third quarter, but a kickoff return for a touchdown by De’Anthony Thomas sparked a comeback attempt. Touchdowns by Kenjon Barner and LaMichael James helped cut the deficit to 38-35 but Oregon missed a game-tying field goal attempt as time expired.
Another example for this category came late in 2019. Led by senior quarterback Justin Herbert, the Ducks traveled to Arizona State with a 9-1 record, ranked 6th in the nation, and legit hopes of making the College Football Playoff. Yet they found themselves trailing the Sun Devils 24-7 in the fourth quarter. The Ducks got two quick touchdowns to cut the deficit to 24-21, only for Arizona State’s freshman quarterback to throw an 81-yard touchdown.
(Quick sidenote: The 2019 team squandered Justin Herbert’s senior season by losing to two freshman quarterbacks. The first one was Auburn freshman Bo Nix, who later transferred to Oregon and became one of the best players in school history. The second one was Arizona State freshman Jayden Daniels, who later transferred to LSU and won the Heisman Trophy. Oh, and the guy Daniels threw that 81-yard touchdown to was future 49ers stud Brandon Aiyuk. None of these things made these moments easier to process in the moment.)
“The Rock Fight”
The Chip Kelly era was the most fun time to be an Oregon football fan. The Ducks averaged a mind boggling 44.7 points per game during that four-year stretch and went 46-7 over that span. But every once in a while, some team would take Oregon’s offense completely out of rhythm and turn the game into a “Rock Fight”. When Oregon scored at least 20 points in a game, they were 45-3. When they failed to score 20 points, they were 1-4.
The most traumatizing “Rock Fight” came in 2012. The Ducks were 10-0, were the top-ranked team in the nation, and were averaging almost 55 points per game. Then Stanford came into Autzen and put Oregon’s offense into a blender. The Cardinal won 17-14 in overtime and the loss cost the Ducks a spot in the national title game. It was the second time in Oregon history that a single loss to Stanford cost Oregon a chance to play for the title. I’m so glad Oregon is playing Ohio State in the Rose Bowl and not Stanford.
“The No-Show”
The losses I’ve described above can lead to all sorts of emotional responses: sadness, confusion, despair, etc. Yet there is one specific type of loss that bypasses all of those feelings and leads straight to anger. I’m talking about “The No-Show”. The type of loss where a team just looks completely disinterested on both sides of the ball. There are several examples I could point to, but a couple stick out more than others.
In 2013, the first year of the Mark Helfrich era, the Ducks entered November with an 8-0 record, ranked 2nd in the nation, and were beating teams by an average margin of 55-14. That’s when they took a trip to Stanford and you should know by now that an undefeated Oregon team playing Stanford is almost always a recipe for disaster. The Ducks fell behind 26-0 and while they scored a couple garbage time touchdowns to make the final score a respectable 26-20, there was no point at which it looked like Stanford was in danger of losing. What made this particular “No-Show” even more infuriating is that two weeks later Oregon went to unranked Arizona and lost 42-16. Two complete “No-Shows” in a span of three weeks for a team that was destroying opponents by 40 points per game makes the 2013 season arguably the most frustrating season in Oregon history. And I’m talking about a season in which Oregon won 11 games and finished the season ranked 9th in the country. Fifteen years prior, that would have qualified as the best season in school history by a mile.
The only way a “No-Show” can get worse is if it leads to a “Tailspin” full of “No-Shows”. That’s what happened at the end of the 2021 season when the Mario Cristobal era came to a close in the most inglorious of ways. Mario took Oregon to Utah with a 9-1 record and ranked 3rd in the nation, so it was pretty disappointing when the Ducks trailed 28-0 at halftime. It was even more disappointing when the Ducks got a rematch with Utah two weeks later in the Pac-12 Championship Game and fell behind 38-3. It became clear after the game that Mario was negotiating his contract with Miami while the season was finishing up. Perhaps the “One Foot Out the Door No-Show” should be its own category?
A couple weeks later, with an anonymous assistant serving as an interim coach, the Ducks played Oklahoma in the Alamo Bowl and fell behind 30-3 at halftime. All of this context provides at least some explanation for Oregon’s 49-3 loss to Georgia to kick off the 2022 season. Dan Lanning took over a program in the middle of a “Tailspin” and it was unrealistic to think a game against the defending national champs with a first-time head coach was going to get them out of it.
“They Were the Better Team Tonight”
When a program reaches a certain level of success, it’s no longer acceptable to refer to a loss as a “Moral Victory”, so the most acceptable loss is to tip your cap and say “They were the better team tonight”.
That was the case when the 2014 Ducks played for the national title against Ohio State and lost 42-20. That was not a game in which the Ducks played especially poorly. Marcus Mariota threw for 333 yards and the defense forced 4 turnovers. Under most circumstances, that’s a recipe for success. But Ohio State was just a buzzsaw. They lost starting quarterback Braxton Miller at the beginning of the season, then lost backup quarterback J.T. Barrett at the end of the regular season, yet somehow became even more prolific with third-stringer Cardale Jones taking snaps. They hung 70 points on Wisconsin in the Big Ten Championship, beat top-ranked Alabama 42-35 in the CFP Semifinals, and then pulled away from Oregon thanks to a monster performance from Ezekiel Elliott’s 246 rushing yards and 4 touchdowns. Oregon had a really good team in 2014. Ohio State was just better.
This category also works to describe last year’s Pac-12 Championship Game loss to Washington in which the Ducks fell behind 20-3, rallied to take a 24-20 lead into the fourth quarter, but couldn’t close the deal thanks to a heroic performance from Huskies running back Dillon Johnson. Oregon had a really good team in 2023. Washington was just better.
“The Hangover”
Some losses you can see coming from a mile away. In 2018, Oregon won an overtime thriller against a really good Washington team and a couple hours later it was announced that College Gameday would be traveling to Pullman, Washington for the first time for the next week’s game between Oregon and Washington State. I went to bed that night fully expecting the Ducks to lose in one week’s time. The Ducks fell behind 27-0 so this game qualifies as a “Hangover No-Show”. And it began a stretch in which they lost three of four games to spoil a once promising season, so this was technically a “Hangover No-Show Tailspin”.
A more straightforward example of a “Hangover” loss came in 2009 when Oregon beat a highly ranked USC team on Halloween night, then lost 51-42 at Stanford the following week. (I cannot emphasize enough how thankful I am not to be playing Stanford in a few days).
“The Zebra”
Just about any close loss has a few questionable calls and I’m generally opposed to blaming the referees for a loss unless a neutral or opposing fan gives me reason to do so. In 2021, the Ducks were a couple weeks removed from beating Ohio State in Columbus, they were ranked 3rd in the nation, and they were playing a bad Stanford team. Like really bad. That Stanford team finished the year 3-9. Losing to a 3-9 team is never really excusable if you’ve shown you can beat a time like Ohio State, but again this was Stanford. The one team capable of ruining any Oregon season.
This game never should have been close to begin with, but it has to be pointed out that Oregon held a 24-17 lead in the final minutes when Stanford put together a game-tying drive thanks to three terrible penalty calls. The first was a roughing the passer penalty, the second was a targeting penalty, and the last one was a pass interference penalty in the end zone as time expired. To be clear, Oregon had multiple opportunities to win the game after those three calls went against them. But this is the only game I can remember when a Washington fan called me immediately after the game and said “I was rooting against the Ducks but you guys got absolutely screwed by refs”.
“The Coin Flip”
The last type of heartbreak is the hardest one to forget. A “Coin Flip” loss is any game that comes down to a single play. These are usually thrilling games in which the lead changes hands several times. Recent examples include last season’s 36-33 loss to Washington in Seattle or the previous season’s 37-34 loss to Washington in Eugene. Both of these games came down to the final play and there were several inflection points in both games that caused Oregon fans to say things like “If Bo Nix doesn’t get hurt on that play…” or “If Dan Lanning didn’t go for it on 4th down that one time…” or “if Dan Lanning didn’t go for it on 4th down those three times…” or “if Camden Lewis had just made that field goal..”.
I should also point out that there is an estranged cousin to “The Coin Flip” which some might refer to as “The Blunder”. I don’t want to make this is its own category because I don’t like putting too much blame on one particular player but I also have to acknowledge that some losses unfold in such a way where one individual’s crucial error becomes the defining play that everyone remembers. It’s receiver Cameron Colvin fumbling through the end zone against Cal in 2007. It’s running back C.J. Verdell fumbling against Stanford in 2018 when a single first down would have iced the game. My goodness, how many times do I need to keep bringing up Stanford? We need to wrap up this therapy session.
If you’ve made it this far then I’m guessing you’re either an Oregon-loving masochist or a Husky fan or a Beaver fan. Regardless, thanks for going on this journey with me. More than anything, the point of this exercise was to underscore how winning a national championship is really freaking hard. Oregon has had many teams over the years that were really really good and a few that I would even describe as great. By my count, they’ve had fifteen different teams enter November with one loss or less and they’ve had a handful of others that found themselves ranked in the top ten at some point in the season.
None of these previous Oregon teams were able to finish the job and perhaps this team will experience something similar. Or maybe, just maybe, this Oregon team can be different…