Ohio State clips the wings of favored Ducks
By
Mark BakerThe Register-Guard
PASADENA, Calif. — It hadn’t happened in 93 years, and it didn’t happen Friday.
As darkness fell on the Rose Bowl, the sunset-pinkened San Gabriel Mountains high above it disappearing into the cool night air, darkness also fell on the faces of 40,000 or more University of Oregon football fans here, their hopes of a victory in the “granddaddy” of all bowl games gone as the final seconds ticked off the scoreboard.
The Ducks were supposed to take this one; they were favored to win the 96th Rose Bowl over storied Ohio State University. But it wasn’t meant to be. The Buckeyes beat the Ducks, 26-17, in front of a New Year’s Day crowd of 93,963 on a day when temperatures neared 70 degrees.
“It’s the first time we got beat playing our game,” said UO senior Kyle Knapp, slumped in the fourth row of the stadium’s south end zone, his forlorn expression juxtaposed against his green-and-yellow wig.
“It was a good game, though. We’ll be back,” he said.
John Tattersall of Sacramento, a 1992 UO graduate, was teary-eyed as he stood in the south end zone seats with his 10-year-old son Evan, who was wearing the No. 21 LaMichael James jersey, staring at the Ohio State team celebrating in the middle of the field.
“Proud,” Tattersall said, when asked what he was feeling. “Yet perplexed. We were supposed to win this game. Our guys fought hard. It’s a foundation for the future, though.”
Evan Tattersall couldn’t mask his disappointment. “Since Oregon was favored, it’s just sad,” he said.
This was only the fifth time Oregon has made it to the Rose Bowl game, first played in 1902, then shelved for 14 years before Washington State beat Brown, 14-0, in the 1916 game.
The next year, on Jan. 1, 1917, Oregon came to Pasadena, back when the game was played at a place called Tournament Park, and upset mighty Penn of the Ivy League, also by a 14-0 score, to win the third Rose Bowl game ever played.
That was the last and only time the Ducks have ever won the Rose Bowl. They lost 7-6 to Harvard in 1920, 10-7 to Ohio State (which is now 8-0 against the Ducks) in 1958, and 38-20 to an undefeated Penn State team in 1995.
The Ducks are now 1-4 overall in Rose Bowl games, but it’s unlikely that any of the previous losses stung like this one.
Not only did Oregon fans expect the Ducks to win here, so did most college football pundits across the country. The Ducks’ lightning quick spread-option offense, and dual-threat quarterback Jeremiah Masoli, would be too much for the Buckeyes, ranked eighth nationally, they said.
But it was Ohio State, and its 6-foot-6, 235-pound quarterback, Terrelle Pryor, the one the Ducks recruited so heavily, who came away with the win. Pryor passed for 266 yards and two touchdowns, ran for 72 yards, and was named the game’s most valuable player.
“You were listening to the wrong people,” Ohio State coach Jim Tressel said after the game. “We did what we thought we should do in various situations and there’s no doubt (Pryor) did a heck of a job for us.”
For the Ducks, who finished the season 10-3 — only the fifth time they have won at least 10 games in a season — they ended the season the way they started it: with a loss. But after the season-opening disaster at Boise State on Sept. 3, when the Ducks lost 19-8 and were embarrassed on national television when tailback LeGarrette Blount punched a Bronco player after the game, no one thought they would end the year in the Rose Bowl.
“Just the fact they made it here,” UO fan Fred Perl of Bend said after the game. “The heart they showed after the Boise State game.”
The story of Blount — who was first suspended for the rest of his senior season by head coach Chip Kelly, then later told by Kelly that he could be reinstated in November (which he was) if he fulfilled certain behavorial and academic requirements — would follow Oregon throughout the year, despite the team’s claiming the Pac-10 Conference championship and the Rose Bowl berth.
After the Boise State game, Blount did not play again until the final regular season game against Oregon State. Then, he played a key role, scoring a second-half touchdown that sparked a UO comeback against the Beavers.
When Blount entered the game here Friday in the second quarter, the Ducks trailing 10-3, Oregon fans erupted in cheers. Blount scored on a diving 3-yard touchdown run the first time he touched the ball. The play was at first ruled short of the end zone, but further review by the officials awarded him the score, and the extra point tied the game at 10-10.
Ohio State took a 16-10 halftime lead on two field goals, and the Ducks took their only lead of the game early in the third quarter after taking the second half kickoff and marching straight down the field, as the Buckeyes had done to open the game, scoring on Masoli’s 1-yard touchdown run.
Oregon fans were confident a Rose Bowl victory was imminent at that point, that the pundits had been correct, and so had their hearts. Duck Lips blared, pompoms waved, voices screamed.
“Pretty good game,” said 84-year-old Clinton “Pete” Hutchison of Ridgefield, Wash., who took his first jetliner ride down here and sat in his yellow No. 8 Masoli jersey, tapping his cane on the ground. “I hope we come out on top.”
But there was a lot of time left, almost an entire half of football to be played. And the Ducks would not score again, Masoli being held to 81 yards passing on the day and a season-low nine yards rushing.
Oregon fans said it would not be another 15 years, though, before the Ducks return to the Rose Bowl.
“It’s going to be a short time coming back,” said Marv English of Medford, who watched the game with his good friend Perl from the fourth row of the south end zone.
And coming here was still a special time despite the loss — how could it not be?
“It’s worth every minute, win or lose,” said English, a 1986 UO graduate. “You can’t beat the experience.”
