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QuickTake:
Two of Lookout’s reporters graduated from Indiana University, so the high-stakes rematch between the Ducks and the Hoosiers makes for mixed emotions. They talk about who they’re rooting for and which college mascot is better. (Hint: That'd be the Duck.)
As Lookout Eugene-Springfield’s sports team heads to Atlanta to cover the Peach Bowl game between the University of Oregon and Indiana University, they do so knowing there are two turncoats back home in the newsroom.
Education correspondent Lilly St. Angelo and arts and culture correspondent Annie Aguiar are 2021 graduates of Indiana University who have been excited to see their alma mater’s success in football (especially considering the team wasn’t that great during their time in college).
But has living in Eugene made the two UO fans? Or, to pose the question differently: If it talks like a Duck and walks like a Duck, is it still a Hoosier?
What team are we rooting for in the Peach Bowl?
Lilly St. Angelo: Indiana, because I would be a traitor if I didn’t. I feel loyal to my friends. My friends from college would disown me if I rooted for Oregon. It’s also for nostalgia.
A lot of IU students have fond memories from football tailgates on Saturdays. The fun atmosphere of those tailgates are like pure college memories, untainted, even though we never won.
Annie Aguiar: I’m rooting for Indiana, because I love nothing more than hopping on a bandwagon and being a part of a “winning side,” hence why I become an Eagles fan for a week and half whenever they go to the Super Bowl.
While I never went to football games in college, this is the bandwagon that I feel like I have ownership of after paying four years of tuition. Go Hoosiers.
Has living in Eugene made us Ducks fans?
Annie: I have to say, I’m fond of that Duck mascot. I covered “ESPN College GameDay” the first time that it came to the UO campus this season, and it’s hard to not get swept up in a big fan moment. I truly had no affinity at all for the Ducks, but I just like them now. Do I like them enough to want them to beat my Hoo-Hoo-Hoosiers? No.
Lilly: I do have a Ducks T-shirt. I do like the Ducks now. I really like the mascot.
Annie: I love that big cartoon duck. When I saw the Duck at Holiday Night Out I was like, “This is a celebrity.”
Lilly: Also, I enjoy the green, but I don’t enjoy the yellow.
Annie: I think that’s fair.
Who do we think is going to win?
Lilly: I know very little about college football, but I think Indiana will win this game. I only really pay attention to one college game during the season, and it is the IU vs. Purdue football game, also known as the Old Oaken Bucket game. This year IU beat Purdue 56-3. I have many friends who went to Purdue so this is a very important game and from that score, I think IU is really good.
Annie: As a Cuban-American kid from Florida watching the star player and with the Heisman Trophy winner being a Cuban-American kid from Florida, I have to root for my boy Fernando Mendoza. I have to root for Indiana University. If IU loses, I’m not going to be devastated because I love an underdog, even as well-resourced an “underdog” as the University of Oregon is in this rematch. I don’t think it’s going to be an easy game for IU. I don’t think it’s going to be 56-3. But who’s to say?
Lilly: I completely agree, I think Oregon is way way better than Purdue. I also cried when I watched Fernando Mendoza’s speech at the Heisman ceremony.
Annie: How could you not?
Lilly: It was incredibly emotional and amazing.
Dan Lanning or Curt Cignetti?
Annie: I think I much prefer Curt because Dan Lanning feels like such a cipher. Lanning has an unreadable expression where he could be behind the counter of an Enterprise Rent-A-Car waiting for his lunch break, and he’s at these massive highs of his career. (But his reaction to the team’s win over Penn State is a solid counterargument.) He’s a good coach. But there’s something about how Curt Cignetti looks angry, always. Not like a yelling anger, like this simmering anger. That’s my guy.
Lilly: I have no opinion on this — I really don’t.
Annie: You’re not a fan of the Cig Ten?
Lilly: I like Curt Cignetti, because he has turned around IU’s football team when no one else has managed to do that. I don’t know enough about Dan Lanning.
Better mascot: Duck or Hoosier?
Lilly: The Duck.
Annie: Duck by a mile. For some background here for our Oregon friends, Indiana University very recently brought out an old vintage mascot, the Bison, so theoretically they have an animal mascot now like everyone else does. But real IU fans know that the mascot is not a bison, it’s not anything like that. It’s a man. It’s just a random man from Indiana.
Lilly: That is the definition of a Hoosier; there are other folkloric definitions, but the basic bottom line definition of a Hoosier is someone from Indiana.
Annie: Purdue, as you mentioned earlier, their mascot is also a man — a boilermaker — you know, but IU’s mascot doesn’t need a job fabricating steel boilers for trains to be the earnest, humble man that is a Hoosier. That being said, I really like that Duck.
Lilly: Exactly. The Duck adds charm, whimsy and some playfulness to the college game atmosphere.
Annie: I will also say, this question is about mascots but in terms of fan tradition, overall I think the “Shout” stuff is fun. UO has better traditions.
Which college town is better?
Annie: As someone who spent four years in Bloomington, as someone who spent two summers in Bloomington, as someone who adores that city and everything it meant to me, it is Eugene by a mile. Bloomington thinks that it is the type of crunchy, funky place that Eugene actually is. My God, the bookstores alone. The campus is prettier at IU, I would say, but even then, only in pockets. Some buildings look incredible, and others are that disgusting glass.
Lilly: When I moved to Eugene, it reminded me a lot of Bloomington — but out West. I agree with Annie that Eugene is 100% more authentically hippie, crunchy, granola, whatever you want to call it because of the West Coast influence. Bloomington is the best you can get in Indiana if you want a liberal college town. It also has beautiful outdoor spaces around it, just like Eugene, but it doesn’t have the coast an hour away, it doesn’t have the Cascades an hour away. I would have to say Eugene, because I love the outdoors.
Annie: IU fully has a meadow and a forest with multiple paths and beautiful trees on campus, but it doesn’t stack up.
Lilly: Indiana University’s campus is one of the most beautiful campuses in the country. It 100% trumps UO in campus beauty. But if we’re talking overall about the college town, probably Eugene. Bloomington holds a lot of nostalgia for me though.
Annie: I’ve said since I moved here that Eugene is everything I liked about Bloomington, but times a million. It’s not Midwestern gray and sad. It’s Pacific Northwestern gray and sad.
Any Peach Bowl predictions?
Annie: I hope the Duck eats a peach.
Lilly: I think both teams will put on a really good show. I think it’ll be a bitter loss for either one. I honestly will celebrate either win.
Annie: Sco Ducks.
Lilly: Sco Ducks.