Game Day: Time To Get Serious

While this Saturday officially marks the second week of the 2008 football season, it’s really just the beginning.

Certainly Washington offered Oregon an opportunity to work-in their new shoes, shake off the rust, and help create a buzz surrounding the team and its prospects for the upcoming campaign, but pounding on the Huskies generates a feeling similar to that of overpowering one’s younger sibling; sure, it’s a display of dominance, but a defining moment it is not. We were all duped into thinking the domesticated animals to the north had something new in store for us. Maybe a complimentary player or two for Lord Locker, possibly a defense, and potentially a scheme more synonymous with success opposed to failure.

Boy, were we wrong.

A week ago, many Duck fans were lamenting the fact that their beloved had to start the year with a conference game. “It’d sure be nice to have a patsy to work out the kinks,” many said.

“Where’s Portland State or Idaho when you need it?”

I’ll tell you where; Montlake.

The Huskies are PSU or Idaho, and there hasn’t been a bigger patsy since Lee Harvey Oswald. If I see “Jake Locker Right” or “Jake Locker Left” again it will be too soon. At what point does enough become too much? Poor little Jakey must feel like Kelly Leak amongst the Bad News Bears.

“How bout a little help coach?!”

For years I’ve respected and defended Coach Willingham. He’s always been a beacon of integrity on and off the field, but a team is a product of their coach, and that product is an assembly line reject.

If it weren’t Washington I’d probably feel sorry for them. After all, when Chris Harper hit pay dirt late in the fourth quarter of last week’s game I found myself actually questioning the call, “Should they have scored?” I asked myself.

Huh?! This is Washington, the team and fan base whose antics over the years have drawn the ire of nearly every man or women known to don the green and yellow. How dare I even consider pity or empathy an option!

That’s just it, I shouldn’t. Nor should you, but the Huskies have sunk to such an unfathomable low, that the previously unthinkable has now become unavoidable.

The Ducks take on a seemingly over matched Utah State team this afternoon in Autzen, and by all accounts Oregon should have the game in hand by halftime. The Aggies were selected by Sports Illustrated as the worst team in the highest division of college football (previously Division One) prior to the season, and with the Ducks’ playmakers and wide open attack, it reeks of a one-sided affair. They’ll test their depth, give some fresh fish their first taste of live action, and iron-out a wrinkle or two prior to next weeks road game at Purdue. USC or Michigan? No, but in spite of Utah State’s apparent lack of talent, they offer Oregon 2008’s first taste of the competitive arena…at least it’s first serious one.