Believe it or not, there are still people out there — trust me, there are — who insist on calling Oregon's prolific spread-option attack a "gimmick offense." Which at this point is kind of like describing Facebook and Wikipedia as "gimmick companies."
Since Chip Kelly arrived as offensive coordinator in 2007, the Ducks have led the Pac-10/12 in rushing, total and scoring offense five years in a row. This year, they averaged upwards of 500 yards and 46 points per game for the second year in a row. They went over 40 points ten times. Since Kelly was promoted to head coach in 2009, the Ducks are 26-2 in conference games, by an average margin of three touchdowns per game, with three consecutive, outright conference championships. That matches Oregon's entire championship haul over the previous 90 years combined.
In consecutive years, they've vanquished the USC dynasty on the West Coast, played for a national championship, signed the most touted recruiting class in school history and emphatically ended their big-game drought outside of Autzen Stadium. On the application to join the national elite, only one line is blank: A win in an above-the-fold, BCS bowl game.
Oregon does have a BCS win, in a Joey Harrington-led rout over Colorado in the 2002 Fiesta Bowl. From there, though, the Ducks took a nose-dive into mediocrity, finishing outside of the polls in four of the next five seasons — including an 0-4 record in second and third-tier bowl games — before Kelly brought his scorched-earth scheme from New Hampshire. The current run at the top of the Pac-12 has already shown more staying power, thanks in no small part to Oregon's unabashed emergence as "Nike University." But even the Almighty Swoosh hasn't bought any success in January.
In the 2010 Rose Bowl, the Ducks were bit players in Ohio State's big-game redemption after three consecutive BCS flops, going down in a 26-17 loss that marked the best performance of Terrelle Pryor's career. In last year's BCS Championship Game, the No. 1 offense in the nation was manhandled by Auburn's defensive line, held to a season-low 75 yards on the ground and shut out on six different trips into Tiger territory. Somehow, they survived long enough to go down in an excruciating, 22-19 loss on the game's final snap.
It doesn't help that Oregon followed that up by getting similarly shoved around by LSU in the season opener, deepening its reputation for wilting in the face of old-school muscle. Its 53-30 win at Stanford on Nov. 12 was a big step toward erasing that meme: Thirty points points marked Stanford's lowest-scoring game in two years, and its output in terms of total yards (372), rushing yards (129) and yards per play (4.9) marked new lows for the Cardinal offense with Andrew Luck as a starting quarterback. The most hyped quarterback in America was sacked three times, hit a dozen more and forced into three turnovers, all leading directly to Oregon touchdowns — and to Luck's status as runner-up for the Heisman, an award he seemed to have in the bag before facing the Ducks.
Exactly one week later, though, the same team was bloodied at home by USC, which pounded out a solid night on the ground, ate Oregon alive on play-action passing and made LaMichael James look like he was playing in a bottle. Wisconsin's blueprint in the Rose Bowl is the same, only more so: The Badgers arrive in Pasadena with not only a reputation for a dominant, straight-ahead running game behind its usual steamroller of an offensive line, but also with the most efficient quarterback in the nation and a defense that ranks in the top ten in yards and points allowed. They're everything that the Ducks are not — massive, conventional, powerful — and that the Ducks have struggled to overcome on a big stage.
Against Ohio State and Auburn the last two years, it was enough for a traditional middleweight to be on those stages in the first place. As a heavyweight, though, Oregon is long past "just happy to be here": This time, as a familiar face (not to mention a 6-point favorite to win, according to Vegas), it's going to be much harder to live down another failure to punch in its new weight class.
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Matt Hinton is on Facebook and Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.