Original Post as follows:
John Canzano, sports columnist for the Portland Oregonian newspaper is "right on" today in his column about the Ducks. To read his column click on the title above for a link. A few quotes from his column:
It was unacceptable. It was embarrassing. It was a total failure.
Not the football game.
The performance of the losing head coach afterward.
Oregon was outclassed Thursday night on the football field at Sam Boyd Stadium. Brigham Young laid a 38-8 back-alley whipping on the Ducks in the Las Vegas Bowl.
You saw it. I saw it.
Then, after it mercifully ended, Oregon coach Mike Bellotti sat around with a pair of dispassionate eyes, speaking with a flat, hollowed-out voice, refusing to own the moment. When asked where the passion was, Bellotti said, "You'll have to ask the players." .....
Ducks fans who supported the program by coming to Las Vegas, paying $50 per ticket, several hundred dollars in airfare, more money for hotels, rental cars, gas and meals should be immediately offered a subsidization. Instead, Bellotti, who should have asked for forgiveness (it's his program, right?) offered to his followers a meek and unsatisfying, "Come back next year, we'll do better." .....
Droves of fans in green and yellow left the stadium midway through the third quarter, presumably because getting drunk and inhaling half a pack of cigarette smoke while losing a couple of hundred bucks in the casinos beats standing around in the cold watching your team stare blankly.
Can't say I blame a single Ducks defector.....
"Where's the heart?" a Ducks fan leaning over the railing of the stadium asked.
Oregon would have been better off politely declining the Las Vegas Bowl invitation and saving everyone the time. But Bellotti's reaction to the non-performance goes down as an alarming development....
It's poor form, Coach.
It's also your program, Coach.
You still want it, right?
UPDATE: NOVEMBER 1, 2007
Sometimes Canzano is correct and sometimes not. Back in December of 2006 he was "Right on." about the Vegas Bowl. In November of 2007 his latest blogs about his his press box experience at the U$C game is an attempt to make it all about him. This time he is very wrong. In my opinion, the tough love the players and coaches got from their fans after the Las Vegas Bowl in part gave them the incentive to work hard during the summer and spring of 2007 and the success we see to date is the result. I still have a bad taste in my mouth over the Las Vegas Bowl and I never want to see us repeat it.... there was no excuse for it. But enough about the past "just win the day".... Beat ASU on Saturday! Let's go Ducks!
Check out my current posts by clicking on the title above for a link... the old link to Canzano's column is dead on the Oregon live end.
