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Underdog Oregon Seeks Revenge over Boise State - Week One College Football Action
9/03/09
Nothing like a big revenge game to kick off the college football season! Oregon takes on Boise State in the ESPN late game Thursday night in a game sure to draw plenty of views and bettors. Last year, Boise State upset Oregon 37-32 in one of only 3 losses for the Ducks. Revenge to start the year is always strong as there's no worry about overlooking a team. You can be sure Boise State has been getting plenty of attention from the Oregon coaching staff and you can be sure that the Oregon players are reminded often.
In last years game, #17 Oregon came into the game starting their 3rd string QB as a result of injuries. At the time, that was Jeremiah Masoli. Masoli was knocked out (literally) in the 1st quarter and didn't return to the game. Down to QB #4, the Ducks fell behind 24-6 in the first half. In spite of all this, the Ducks still managed to come back and score 19 points in the 4th quarter but still came up short.
This year Masoli is back along with Justin Roper and the Ducks mental state should be much more focused on the task at hand. The problem with a team like Boise State is that their schedule is, well, a joke. As a matter of fact, it's safe to say that Oregon is likely the toughest test they'll face all year long. Sure, they upset Oklahoma in 2006 in the bowl game and they seem to win 12 or 13 games year in and year out. But aside form the Oklahoma upset and the win over this shorthanded Oregon team a year ago, any other time Boise stepped up against a ranked opponent, they were spanked.
Boise may be on a 54-2 run against WAC opponents, but they have lost 4 out of their last 5 bowl games, the losses coming to Louisville, Boston College, East Carolina and TCU and lets face it, beating Oklahoma was a miracle. In 2005 they stepped up in class to play #13 Georgia and lost 48-13. They also played #20 Fresno and lost by 3 touchdowns. In 2008 they played Hawaii who was ranked #14 and lost 39-27. So since 2004 Boise is 1-3 against ranked opponents during the regular season and 1-4 in Bowl games, with all of those opponents ranked except East Carolina, but hey, they lost to them as well.
We point this out simply to show the difference in class. In this case, the difference in class between the PAC 10 and the WAC. If you're a talent player, would you rather attend Oregon and get to play against USC, maybe even go to the Rose Bowl? Or would you prefer to go to a WAC school and play against Idaho and New Mexico State in games that virtually no one will see? Right, you'd be a Duck in a heartbeat.
Here we get the Oregon Ducks, the team with the better overall talent, that has a revenge motive to boot, and we're getting them as an underdog of +4.5 over a Boise team that falls short when they step up in class. A Boise team that when they did manage to pull an upset, twice, they did so by 1 point and by 5 and quite frankly, were damn lucky to pull it off. Payback is a bitch. Boise starts the year 0-1
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