So, the Ducks are back

It’s not that complicated — Oregon’s all the way back.

EUGENE — For the record, Oregon felt back before kickoff. 

The smoke and heat that filled this state the entire fall disappeared overnight, giving way to one of those crisp and damp mornings that have welcomed football fans on Saturdays here for more than a century. By 10 a.m., it smelled like barbecue in the Autzen Stadium tailgates. Drums, trumpets and cheers echoed through the air. For the thousands who gathered on campus before sunrise, maybe a second wind — or six pack — had kicked in. The majority of the 59,962 who crammed into Autzen — the fourth largest crowd ever assembled here — were in their seats before the coin flip, with yells of “Go” and “Ducks” alternating from the north and south grandstands. 

They certainly understood the magnitude of this one. 

Eugene hadn’t hosted a matchup of top-10 teams since Michigan State in 2014. Hell, the Pac-12 has only featured 15 of those matchups between a pair of its teams in the last 30 years. 

College GameDay was here. Chip Kelly was here. 

And after Oregon’s 45-30 win, he might have thought he had jumped into a time machine. 

Want to know why Dan Lanning is at Oregon? It’s because Mario Cristobal won 73 percent of his games in four years, a record good enough to earn him an $80 million contract and chartered flight out of town. 

It’s the Justin Herbert and Troy Dye era, one that saw the Ducks rise from the ashes of a 4-8 2016 season and storm back to win the 2019 Rose Bowl. 

But even as the Ducks won games, Cristobal seemingly fought tooth and nail to avoid any affiliation with, well, Oregon. Remember, Cristobal created the first good offensive line Oregon’s ever had. Cristobal brought physicality and toughness Oregon’s never seen. The Ducks had never been able to run the ball before Cristobal came, and he told stories of the SEC mentality, Nick Saban and the championship mindset he learned coaching at Alabama or his playing days at Miami. Oregon fans darn near needed a translator to wrap their minds around all of it, but were thankfully treated to an exciting brand of football that featured wins like Oregon’s 7-6 victory over Michigan State in the Redbox Bowl and a 21-6 win over Stanford in 2019 that featured headlines like: “Boring? The Ducks love boring games…” 

Can you imagine actually enjoying what we saw on Saturday? You know, the game where Oregon scored on every drive until the fourth quarter. The one where Bo Nix planted himself firmly into the Heisman race with nearly as many touchdowns (5) as incompletions (6). The one where Bucky Irving made defenders miss in the backfield, the offense played with tempo and the staff took risks like the second-quarter onside kick recovery that sapped the life from the UCLA sidelines. The one that looked a heck of a lot like it did back when Kelly was on the home sideline, when Oregon had a reserved spot in the top 10 and a valid concern about whether the Autzen Stadium scoreboard could display triple digits.

Who could possibly like that?

Oh, right.

And these Ducks aren’t shying away from that. Since the spring, players and coaches have talked of an offensive awakening, even going as far as purposefully conjuring up comparisons to Oregon’s past.

“Looking at what Oregon should have been and what Oregon could have been — now we’re bringing back the Chip Kelly offense where we’re creating space and putting players in space,” receiver Seven McGee said after the spring game. “It was wonderful.”

The Ducks have scored 40 or more points against every opponent outside the state of Georgia. They put up 500-plus yards of offense for the fifth time in the last six games. They took shots — like Nix’s 49-yard touchdown that dropped in perfectly to Troy Franklin — that almost made people forget about the last four years of the pistol offense.

And they played enough defense to stymie Kelly’s offense, something Oregon fans are definitely not used to seeing around these parts.

“I think coach Kelly does such a good job of lulling you to sleep and then challenging your eyes,” Lanning said. “We wanted to make sure we didn’t have a lot of eye violations in this game.”

They didn’t. Now the Ducks are 6-1 after playing their best game in the national spotlight, and Lanning and offensive coordinator Kenny Dillingham are about to experience the national glow up that happens when two newish faces are leading a playoff contender. Get ready for national stories. Get ready for Tom Rinaldi features that get the tears flowing. Get ready for the type of attention Oregon hasn’t received since a decade ago when three-quarters of the trucks driving down the I-5 Corridor sported the winged-O logo on the back window.

The stories of the Chip era have long exceeded the four years of his actual tenure. In truth, Kelly was no different than Willie Taggart or Cristobal before him. He came to Oregon with no connections, won football games, then left. He just did so in a way none of us have ever seen before.

I sometimes wonder if he understands what that era meant to fans around here. It can be hardest to tell the power of a hurricane when you’re at the center. But as Oregon racked up the points on Saturday and Autzen rollicked in excitement, I think Kelly could look across the field to the opposing sidelines and understand the force of the storm.

— Tyson Alger
@tysonalger