For these fans, Ducks big win on Halloween 2009 was a milestone — but not because of the game

Steve Johnson doesn’t remember many of the plays from the University of Oregon’s historic 47-20 win over University of Southern California on Halloween 2009.

Neither does Tai Pruce-Zimmerman.

Johnson remembers reuniting with old friends at a time when he needed them most. For Pruce-Zimmerman, it was a night with his dad that marked a milestone in their relationship.

The game itself was a turning point for the Ducks. No. 10 Oregon racked up 613 yards against No. 4 USC, handing Pete Carroll’s Trojans their worst loss in more than a decade and announcing a changing of the guard in the Pac-10 — where speed, flash and uniforms were about to become the new standard.

Seventeen years later, the memories will be hard to avoid Saturday when Oregon hosts Northwestern. Chip Kelly, who coached the Ducks to that landmark victory, returns to Autzen Stadium as the Wildcats’ offensive coordinator — just as Oregon plays its first game since firing offensive coordinator Drew Mehringer.

The matchup, coming on another Halloween weekend, is sure to inspire nostalgia for the high-flying Oregon offenses that helped transform the program.

But for two fans who were there that night in 2009, what stuck has little to do with what plays were called on the field.

The rebound

Steve Johnson was not having a particularly good 2009.

A UO graduate living in Texas, Johnson was going through a divorce and feeling increasingly isolated from the friends he’d made during his years in Eugene.

His wife’s academic career had taken the couple around the country. Johnson, who worked in finance, had followed along. But with his marriage falling apart, Texas was feeling especially lonely.

“I was just in a really dark place,” Johnson said. “I told one buddy how down in the dumps I was, and he was like, ‘You got to get your ass out to a game, man.’”

Johnson didn’t have much of an argument.

He had been following Ducks football since graduating UO in 1994, knew the program’s trajectory and figured a Halloween spent with his college friends watching their old team — maybe, just maybe — put up a fight against the mighty Trojans could be just what he needed.

Johnson bought tickets, made the trip and reunited with the group of friends he’d once spent every fall Saturday tailgating with outside Autzen Stadium.

And oddly enough, for a game featuring so many explosive plays, Johnson doesn’t remember many of them.

He just remembers how the game made him feel in a time when he needed it most.

“For me it was primarily just being back with friends,” Johnson said. “Where I was in my life was kind of a lonely place. … I didn’t really have any friends out there. … It was more about that than it was about the actual game itself.”

The reunion also helped confirm a decision he’d been considering.

“I had been thinking about moving back to the Northwest because that’s where my greatest concentration of friends were,” he said. “That moment of kinship. It really is kind of a family, all those people at a tailgate. You only see them, what, six home games a year. … Having the whole group together, I hadn’t done that in a long time up until that point.”

Johnson moved back to Oregon two years later.

“I guess you could say it was sort of a turning point for me, too.”

Walking Dad home

Tai Pruce-Zimmerman admits he doesn’t remember many of the plays from Fright Night, either. He does remember how much the tickets cost.

“A little over $100 each,” the 42-year-old Eugene resident said.

One was for him. The other was to pay back his dad, Ken.

Pruce-Zimmerman remembers his dad taking him to his first game in 1990. Pruce-Zimmerman was 6, Autzen Stadium was rocking and the Ducks beat No. 4 BYU 32-16.

“I’m looking up at the scoreboard and doing little 6-year-old math, and I’m just starting to learn the concept of multiplication, and I’m like, ‘We exactly doubled their score, right, Dad?’”

He was right, and Ken carried Pruce-Zimmerman out of the stadium on his shoulders as the boy high-fived strangers.

Nineteen years later, Pruce-Zimmerman was 25 and living in Ashland when he came across two tickets online. After a lifetime of his dad taking him to games, this would be the one when he took Ken.

Pruce-Zimmerman took a Greyhound up to Eugene, where his dad picked him up. They went to Pegasus Pizza, which used to be their go-to spot when they needed to find a place showing the game.

He doesn’t remember much of what happened on the field, other than USC giving Oregon a run in the first half before the Ducks pulverized the Trojans in the second.

But like his first time at Autzen, he remembers the walk out of the stadium.

He wasn’t on Ken’s shoulders this time.

They walked stride for stride, down the Autzen steps, through the woods and across the river.

“There was an energy there,” Pruce-Zimmerman recalled. “Walking across that footbridge, it felt like we were that one crowd, that same in-game vibe carried through like it usually doesn’t,” he said. “There’s that piece of it. And then you combine that with the big life piece of that little reversal, taking my dad to a game, I mean, it just felt like a major milestone of adulthood for me.”

The game had lasting effects on the program, too. The Ducks went on to win their first Pac-10 title since 2001 and reach the Rose Bowl. A year later, they played for a national championship.

Pruce-Zimmerman had season tickets for that 2010 season — inspired by Halloween 2009, he and his now-wife decided to make a whole lot more memories at Autzen. And four years later, the Ducks reached the title game again — in Johnson’s first year as a season ticket holder.

Johnson said only the 2024 Ohio State game could compare with the crowd noise from 2009. And Pruce-Zimmerman most recently attended the James Madison playoff game, with his dad, in December.

More memories have been made since 2009. But just like that game 17 years ago, it’s not always the plays on the field that stand out — no matter how good they were.

“It could have been any game,” Johnson said. “But it’s really cool to be able to say that I was there, too.”