Ugly Duckling

It's a strange experience, watching a story--and the reactions to that story--unfold from the very beginning. LeGarrette Blount was still skipping away--Byron Hout hadn't even hit the ground yet--when Oregon fans started disowning him. This is Google Trends' list of popular searches, about two hours post-game:
I think the strange part is knowing beforehand what people are going to be talking about tomorrow, before most of them know it (because, really, most people didn't stay up for that game).

Anyway, my condolences to the hundreds of people involved with Oregon football who aren't LeGarrette Blount. I get the impression that the Ducks, with their goofy uniforms and pinball offense, had built up a fair amount of goodwill amongst college football fans; this is, somewhat unfairly, going to undo a lot of that, even if/when Blount is removed from the team.

Some other thoughts:

-Think Phil Steele feels a tad triumphant tonight?

-I think, if Chip Kelly is worth his weight in feathers as a motivator, this loss could be very, very beneficial to the Ducks over the rest of the season. They're the laughingstock of CFB right now, and that "nobody respects us" nonsense really seems to play well among football players. At the very least, I expect Purdue to get hate-fucked next week.

-I was disappointed that Oregon didn't bust out the yellows for the blue turf. I was prepared to drop acid just to make some sense of it all.

-I don't really think this changes my outlook much for either team. This certainly looks like Boise's toughest game (ie. the best bet for that one loss I figure they'll end up with), but they still have trips to Fresno State, Louisiana Tech, Tulsa, and the all-bets-are-off netherrealm that is Hawai'i (although Hawai'i figure to be garbage this year). There's also the Nevada game looming at the other end of the schedule. Chris Peterson's Broncos really deserve the benefit of the doubt at this point, but I think the odds of them dropping one game are higher than going undefeated. (By the way, Boise also goes to Bowling Green, in Ohio. They put on a ton of miles this year.)

-As for Oregon, I dunno. I actually, inexplicably, might like their outlook better after this game than I did before it, because of the whole hypothetical "team coming together" nonsense that I speculated on earlier...(shitty, shitty writing alert) could this ugly duckling actually grow into a beautiful swan? (Sorry, I just really needed to put it out there, because some hack writer is going to use it in all seriousness at some point, and I want to take some small credit for it.)

Eh, probably not.

I still suspect they'll get their poop packed by Cal and USC, and there's a good chance there's another slip-up waiting somewhere on the sked, so for now I'm going to drop them from 9-3(6-3) to 8.5-3.5.