USC Football: The View From The Northwest of the Oregon Ducks

Scott Olmos-US PRESSWIRE

Being a Southern California native living in the Pacific Northwest brings with it many challenges.  There is the 9-10 months of rain, which Northwesterners refer to a liquid sunshine.  There is the pressure to recycle.  You have to hide out from the coffee cults up here.  Coffee is like a religion in the Northwest.

Then there is the fact that there is no really good Mexican food to be found anywhere and no In-N-Out Burger!  No Roscoe’s Chicken & Waffles.  No Magic Mountain.

What bugs me the most though, is the transformation of the Duck fans  to obnoxious elitists in such a short span.

I have come across folks who have never talked about sports in the many years that I have known them, and then overnight they are die hard Ducks fans.  Where do they do that at?  Obviously, they do that in the Pacific Northwest.

Where were you when they were 5-6 in 2004?  Where were you all those years when success was defined by making it to the Holiday Bow, Las Vegas Bowl, or the Sun Bowl?

Duck fans were also quick to delight in the punishment handed down to USC by the NCAA.  They wanted to call USC a dirty program because a player was tied to an agent and received improper benefits.  Never mind that the program had nothing to do with it, it was forces outside of the program and in no way tied to the program.

Then the NCAA came knocking on the Ducks’ door over the past year, implicating the program and the athletic program in a major recruiting violation.  The response of the fans here in Oregon to this news?

“Well, everyone is dirty and pays for recruits, we just got caught.”

It should be interesting around here when the NCAA invalidates all of the recent success this program has been having.

For all the success that the Ducks have had over that last three plus seasons, that has not exactly translated into bowl success or NFL talent.  They have won one of the three BCS Bowls they have played in over this span.  They have had exactly eight players selected in the NFL draft in the last three drafts and only one has been taken before the third round.

Over the same span, USC has produced 19 NFL draft picks including three that were taken in the first round.

The Ducks have been successful with their scheme, but their scheme and program are not conducive to producing NFL caliber players.  This should tell any top recruit that if you want to be an NFL player and not just a system guy, stay away from Oregon and strongly consider USC.

Eventually a scheme will be developed to stop your scheme.  That scheme just might be loaded with talent and if you don’t have the talent to match-up, well then you just become a Duck stranded in the water.