Oregon Ducks

State of the Oregon Ducks Part I: Let's Talk About Perspective

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

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Many fans of the Oregon Ducks are in shock with the performance of the team this season, but let us bring you some perspective.

In this two part series we take a look at the State of the Ducks football team. This is part one.

As the level of dissatisfaction with the Oregon Ducks football team continues to grow and with an ever increasing portion of the fanbase questioning the direction the program is going, the few remaining optimists, inside and outside the Hatfield-Dowlin Complex, are imploring fans to have some “perspective.”

The Thing About Perspective

The line of thinking is that fans have lost sight of what the program used to be. And before complaining about the current state of the program and the ever increasing line of embarrassing losses, they need to recall that Oregon wasn’t always a CFB superpower. That before the Chip Kelly era, the Ducks had plenty of “down” seasons.

The most obvious problem with this line of thinking is that perceptions, of course, change. Oregon is no longer the team it was in the late 1990s and early 2000s. What was once considered a good or acceptable season in 1994 or even 2004 is no longer the case. Winning changes perceptions.

With winning comes a few things. Most notably a change in the way the program is perceived. But winning also brings with it more money which leads to nicer facilities which leads to better recruiting which leads to more winning which leads to national exposure which leads to even better recruiting which leads to even more winning which leads to (for some reasons) higher ticket prices, which leads to more revenue and bigger salaries and greater national exposure which leads to a change in, you got it, perception. It’s simple really. A winning program is looked at by people as a winning program. Perceptions and expectations change.

If they want to talk about perspective they’d do best to remember this. From 2009 to 2014 Oregon was a national power. A forward thinking cutting edge program that helped change the landscape of college football. One of the best programs in the country with an overall record of 70-11. They appeared in two National Title games, won 2 Rose Bowl games, 4 conference championships, 1 Fiesta Bowl and had a Heisman trophy winning Quarterback taken as the 2nd overall pick in the NFL draft. The Ducks appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated 6 times (not including the image of Ezekiel Elliott running over them) and had the second longest streak of appearances in the AP top 25. Perspective.

In 2016 Oregon is a two win team that gave up 70 points to their most bitter rival, hasn’t had a lead in the first half of a conference game, lost to the likes of Washington State and Colorado and watched their doormat of a neighbor in Corvallis record their first conference win before them. Perspective.

For the past two years the Oregon Ducks have continued to set records. Although this time they are setting records they’d probably rather not. Any semblance to that old dominant Oregon program is gone. Perspective.

To act as though what the Ducks are going through now is just a down season. One where they just happen to have lost a few games is disingenuous. Oregon isn’t just losing games, they are losing their way. They are losing the identity that made them great. The string of embarrassing loses comes with a price heavier than just an L in the Win-Loss column. These loses are eroding the image of the program that was built up over the last 8 years. When you let your most hated rival not only snap a 12 year losing streak but put 70 points on you in front of the home crowd and a large number of recruits the impact will reverberate for years to come.

For the Athletic Department to be crowing about perspective is counter intuitive. They can hardly afford to give fans anymore reason not to show up. The Ducks have seen their long standing consecutive sellout streak fall, they’ve watched fan engagement dwindle and recorded shock when the student section remained unfilled for their showdown with Washington. Alienating even more fans by calling them spoiled and accusing them of lacking perspective is hardly the way to go about filling seats.  It’s an odd thing for them to lecture fans about having perspective while they themselves literally sit at the top of a giant glass tower.

Unless the Oregon Athletic Department wants their football team to slide into place alongside the mediocre teams of yesteryear, it would serve them well to have a little perspective.

In part 2 of this series we examine whether or not Mark Helfrich is the right man for the job.

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