Buffaloes Feature Stories

College Football Hist-O-Graph Project - #9: Oregon Ducks

By Ash Jackson Oct 21, 2011, 9:53am MDT

Examining Colorado, Pac-12, and Big XII Football over the last 10 years using the Hist-O-Graph...and then saying stuff.

We have an odd history with Oregon. Our first game against them was in 1949, and we traded home-and-home series with them about once every ten years until 1987. Then we started meeting (beating?) them in bowl games; the '95 Cotton Bowl, the '98 Aloha Classic, the '01 Fiesta Bowl.

Since I'm sure you're dying to know, our overall record with the Ducks is 8-7.

The Oregon Ducks Hist-O-Graph: Here There be Monsters

The Ducks opened the decade by beating Texas in the Holiday bowl in '00, and then winning their '01 Fiesta bowl against... someone, I cant seem to find it... my notes seem to have been jumbled...

Whatever, moving on.

Under Mike Belotti, the Ducks were recruiting better and raising expectations, and had won a shared Pac-10 title in '00 and an outright conference title in '01. Then you have the down years, from '02 to '06, begun with bowl game losses to Wake Forest ('02) and to Minnesota ('03).

They shed offensive coordinators every year or so until Chip Kelly was found in New Hampshire in '07. Enter the spread offense at Oregon, the resurgance of the team, and Mike Belotti's way out two years later.

There's every indication that Oregon will continue to recruit well and run confounding offenses, and when Stanford has their entire team hired away by the 49ers, I suspect Oregon will rule the Pac-12 North in the long term.

The Texas Longhorns Hist-O-Graph: Ten Wins and No Excuses

I talked about the Longhorns in a prior article, and most of us should have a passing familiarity with their recent history. Suffice it to say that they've recruited well under Mack Brown, and the continuity of having one head coach for more than a decade has paid off for them; and that in any year they have no excuse to get fewer than ten wins.

Why are they Similar?

If you can ignore the '60's and the '70's (and '80's and '90's), where Texas was some variation of good, and Oregon was some variation of laughably awful, then this argument will be easier to buy...

Sure, Oregon is the nouveau-riche of the two, and prances around in silly clothes cementing that image, but the success that Texas has had presages the success that Oregon is going to have in the Pac-12 in years to come.

Being in an opposite division, where we won't face them every year, Oregon will become our new Texas. We have a history with them, and they're going to be an important measuring stick game for years to come.

And they both smell bad.

Go Buffs!