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Ducks Defeat Sooners, Use Up 40 Years of Officiating Karma

There isn’t much to say about tonight’s 34-33 win over Oklahoma other than that this was a pretty spectacular display of how terrible officiating is in the Pac-10. A quick recap:

  • Oregon did not recover the onside kick. The ball should have been given to Oklahoma since a member of the kicking team touched the ball before it had traveled ten yards. Simply put, the officials on the field made a bad call. This is pretty standard. But what was extraordinary was the replay official (who I can only assume was being held at gunpoint by someone in a Duck costume) confirming the call on the field. Had the correct call been made, Oklahoma would have had the ball and easily won the game.
  • On the second play following the onside kick recovery, a Sooner defender was called for pass interference. I can’t tell whether he actually did interfere with the Oregon receiver, but there is no question that the ball was tipped before any interference was committed. Once again, the officials on the field made a poor call. And once again, the replay official did not overturn it. This call was terrible, obviously, but it wasn’t anywhere near as crucial as the aforementioned phantom onside kick.

It’s a win. A win over a team that I extremely dislike. But it was about as ugly and tainted as one can be. The Oregon defense looked like, well, a typical Pac-10 defense. Oregon’s offense committed three turnovers. Brady Leaf was brought in for one series, presumably because Dennis Dixon didn’t have enough to worry about during the game. But it was a win, dammit. And you have to be grateful for that.
Now please, beat the living hell out of Arizona State and Cal. Please. If only for our pride.

  1. lunchstealer says:

    No way man. Dixie Chicks no good.

    And yeah, USC isn’t gonna have a good season. When the smallest Div-IAA school (in football, there are smaller ones in hoops) got within one possession of winning, we can assume that Steve blew a frickin’ gasket. Wofford is actually my alma mater, so I laughed my ass off when I heard the final score. But I was a Gamecocks fan as a kid, and my dad went to Florida, so in Div-IA, I’m still pullin’ for USC.

    Oh, and to be fully on-topic, when I saw that onside kick, it was obvious, even after about 2 liters of beer (I was at an Octoberfest thing, so yeah, they measure their beer in liters, not pints) that Oregon touched it after about 8 yards. Everybody around me must have been UT fans, though, because they were really happy to see the Sooners go down (or maybe they were just Ducks fans – who knows?)

  2. Timothy says:

    Yar, in honor o’ international talk like a pirate day:

    I be aye that your preferred collegiate american football team sucks a big pink one.

  3. Impartial Hawkeye says:

    Lunchstealer is obviously a Dixie Chicks fan, closet or otherwise. He must be telling the truth about having lived in Texas though. Us Yankees wouldn’t have felt the need to seperate “Texas” from “South.” Rednecks are the same everywhere. I hope that steak was midwestern, corn-fed beef, Stealer, or it wasn’t nearly as mean as you think.

    And a ‘Cocks fan to boot? Figures. Spurrier AND the Dixie Chicks.

    Incidentally, I accept full responsibility for initiating the political debate on this thread and offer my sincere apology, although it was fun while it lasted. Tim may be surprised, but I agree with him that this forum and all related smack talking should be about football.

    So, Stealer, after getting by perennial powerhouse Wofford by a touchdown last week I can hardly wait to see how they fare at home this week against mighty Florida Atlantic….

  4. Timothy says:

    Frankly, I’d rather talk about football.

  5. Dustin says:

    I’m so sick of this debate. Whether you agreed with it or not, the day America overthrew the government of Iraq we linked the futures of our two countries. Our ineffective beauracracy has failed to rebuild Iraq, we never provided enough troops to maximize security, and we failed to increase Iraqi quality of life. We have sacrificed thousands of lives and billions of dollars into a losing campaign and I’m personally pissed. We don’t need to “stay the course” and we don’t need to “cut and run”. We need to win! Why isn’t anybody talking about increasing troop levels and restoring Iraq’s infrastructure. If this is the question of our generation why are we half-assing it. I voted for Bush in 04′ because to me Kerry wasn’t a viable option. I probably throw my vote away in 08′ because the Dems don’t understand that they can’t change the fact that we are there and the GOP wants to win on the cheap. Neither choice is a winning choice and that makes me worry about my unborns future. I wish I was smart enough to know the answer.

  6. lunchstealer says:

    Tim, I agree about amending the constitution. If 9/11 changed everything this much, it should be a slam dunk to convince enough people to amend the constitution to give the executive the power he needs. If not, then maybe terrorists aren’t such a threat.

    And just to answer some questions before we get started:
    I’ve only lived in the South or Texas.
    I cook a mean steak.
    Toby Keith still sucks.

    GO COCKS!

  7. Timothy says:

    Also, when you talk about modifying the Constitution do you mean by the legally acceptable process of a 2/3 vote of both houses of Congress and then ratification by 2/3 of the states or do you mean just ignoring it when it places inconvienient strictures on the Executive branch?

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