All the hype is centered around the Stanford Cardinal for this one. Shouldn't people be paying more attention to the Oregon Ducks? Ted Miller of ESPN makes a strong case.
Poor ole Oregon.
Who's going to bother to remember that Oregon is the two-time defending conference champions, winners of 18 conference games in a row and that winning streak includes a 52-31 whipping of Stanford last fall?...
No one will say or write that because there's the SEC, there's Oklahoma State and there's Andrew Luck and there's just no room for Oregon to fit in. Sorry, Ducks. College football is all full this week with other things. Maybe it will take note of the Ducks funky uniforms if they are funky enough.
Bollocks!
Oregon is not only going to beat Stanford, it's going to make a statement: "Folks, enough jibber-jabber. We're the team that can take down LSU and the Mad Hatter."
Indeed, Oregon hasn't lost a Pac-12 game in over two years, and their conference win streak is perhaps even more impressive than Stanford's unbeaten streak. The last time these two teams played, Oregon proved they could beat Stanford in a big primetime setup and shut down the offense. Despite the fact that Stanford looked like the better team down the stretch, it was Oregon who ended up in the national title game because of their head-to-head matchup.
But Ted failed to mention the last time Oregon lost (the only time Chip Kelly has lost) in conference play, it was in Palo Alto on the Farm against a younger Andrew Luck. And they proved they could use their power run attack to control the football and keep things away from the Ducks up-tempo attack. So this is the one place left that Kelly has yet to conquer.
Will he be able to do it against the biggest test he's had to face in-conference in his three years as Ducks head coach?
For more on Oregon football, hit up Addicted to Quack. For more on Stanford football, check out Rule of Tree.