The last time Oregon visited Michigan Stadium, the Ducks were playing their second game under a new offensive coordinator, a hotshot from New Hampshire named Chip Kelly.
When they arrived at the Big House, the Ducks had to make sure the place was still standing. A week earlier, Michigan suffered one of the biggest upsets in college football history, an earth-shaking loss against an upstart FCS team named Appalachian State.
Mike Bellotti, Oregon’s coach, wasn’t happy about it. He figured the Wolverines would be seething after such a stunning defeat, and Appalachian State ran a version of the spread offense that was becoming Oregon’s signature weapon, meaning the Ducks wouldn’t have the element of surprise.
“I was very concerned, because obviously when a team like Michigan loses to a team like Appalachian State, it’s going to piss some people off,” Bellotti said. “It’s going to get them all riled up. They obviously had something to prove, and I was afraid we were going to be the target of it.”
What happened that day in 2007 was the end of one era crashing into the beginning of another.
The Ducks took over the Big House for their own coming-out party, a 39-7 win that showed the world what Oregon’s offense could do against a Big Ten power. Oregon’s game plan was a tour de force, complete with a Statue of Liberty play, a fake Statue of Liberty and a highlight reel that propelled quarterback Dennis Dixon into the Heisman Trophy race. Soon, teams around the country — including Michigan — would be running versions of the up-tempo spread offense that Oregon perfected.
Seventeen years later, Oregon is returning to the Big House as the No. 1 team in the polls and the Big Ten frontrunner. The Ducks look different now, though Saturday’s uniforms will be an homage to those worn by Dixon, Jonathan Stewart and other stars of their era. College football looks different, too. As teams find their footing in the era of the 12-team College Football Playoff era, no program is off to a better start than Oregon.
In their first season in the Big Ten, the Ducks have a chance to accomplish something that’s happened only once in the past decade. The last Big Ten team to beat Michigan and Ohio State in the same season was Michigan State in 2015. Oregon beat the Buckeyes 32-31 earlier three weeks ago and enters Saturday’s game as more than a two-touchdown favorite against the Wolverines, who have looked vulnerable during their 5-3 start.
Last 10 teams to beat both Michigan, OSU
Any worries that the Ducks would be worn down by the Big Ten schedule or awed by the league’s traditional powers have faded into the background. They still have to survive the gales of November, but they’ve shown no signs of taking on water.
“I see a really good football team, a complete football team that executes at a high level,” Michigan coach Sherrone Moore said. “We’ve got to go execute to win.”
Conference realignment has been a mixed bag for programs from the old Pac-12. USC and UCLA are a combined 3-8 in the Big Ten. Colorado is 4-1 in the Big 12, while Arizona and Utah are a combined 2-8. Cal and Stanford are a combined 1-8 in the ACC.
Rob Mullens, now in his 15th year as Oregon’s athletic director, credited coach Dan Lanning for steering the program smoothly through the transition. Lanning followed two coaches, Willie Taggart and Mario Cristobal, who left Oregon for jobs in their home state of Florida — Taggart after one season for Florida State, Cristobal after four for Miami. The perception of Oregon as a stepping-stone job proved tough to shake.
Lanning, now 30-5 in his third season, has embraced Oregon as a destination. When Alabama was searching for Nick Saban’s successor, Lanning quickly spiked the speculation by releasing a video with the line, “The grass is damn green in Eugene.” It’s only gotten greener since then, as Oregon’s move to the Big Ten brought stability, exposure and guaranteed revenue streams that were lacking in the tumultuous final months of the Pac-12.
“The exposure, the reach, the connection that happens with that is great, not only for Oregon football, but for all of Oregon athletics,” Mullens said, noting that Saturday’s game on CBS will be the seventh consecutive network TV appearance for the Ducks. “We’re getting more traffic in the visitors’ center, more clicks on the website, more people taking a deeper look.”
Oregon beat Ohio State 32-31 on Oct. 12 and is 5-0 in Big Ten play. (Ali Gradischer / Getty Images)
When Ohio State played at Autzen Stadium earlier this season, the game aired in prime time on NBC and ESPN’s “College GameDay” set the scene. Oregon had record season ticket sales in part because of that game, and Eugene’s airport set a record for departing flights the next day, Mullens said.
“It was a chamber of commerce weekend,” Mullens said. “‘GameDay’ was here, national television crowd, a record crowd at Autzen Stadium. It was fun to have the game that everybody anticipated, two teams battling right down to the end.”
The Ducks beat Ohio State for the second time in the four years, this time with Kelly, their former head coach, back in the Autzen Stadium press box calling plays for the Buckeyes. It was a thrilling win, but the days of Oregon trying to measure itself against other elite programs are mostly gone.
When Oregon moved to No. 1 in the AP rankings for the first time since 2012, Lanning responded with a brisk, “Who cares?” Perhaps there was a time when Oregon had to prove it could go toe-to-toe with programs like Ohio State and Michigan, but since Lanning arrived, there’s been no need.
“I just don’t think we’ve ever measured ourselves based on what other people think,” Lanning said. “That doesn’t necessarily change. We have our own internal goals and our plan of what we want to be. At the beginning of every year, everybody asked me what success looks like. To me, it looks like us playing our best football at the end of the season.”
Lanning will be coaching his first game at Michigan Stadium on Saturday, just as Bellotti was in 2007. Bellotti remembers telling his players the dimensions of the field to remind them that it was the same size as any other. The Ducks covered every inch of that turf while piling up 624 yards, the second-highest total ever allowed by the Wolverines.
“It just was one of those games where everything worked,” Bellotti said. “It was the quietest 110,000 people I’ve ever been in front of.”
GO DEEPER
Big Ten beware: Oregon is readier than ever to make a splash
That year, Michigan rebounded from its 0-2 start to finish 9-4 in Lloyd Carr’s final season. Oregon started 8-1 before losing Dixon to a torn ACL, then handed the reins to Kelly in 2009. The Ducks played for national championships in 2010 and 2014, experienced a brief dip in the transition from Mark Helfrich to Taggart and have been on a steady climb ever since.
Beating Michigan in the Big House wouldn’t be the milestone that it was 17 years ago, but Michigan is still the winner of three consecutive conference titles and the reigning national champion. The road to Big Ten championships goes through places like Ann Arbor, Columbus, Madison and State College. Now it goes through Eugene, too.
There was no single moment that put Oregon on a path to becoming a heavyweight in the Big Ten, but the last trip to Michigan Stadium was a big step along the way.
“We were recognized as somebody to be dealt with, an equal foe to the Big Ten,” Bellotti said. “The Michigan game was certainly one that got us more notoriety, because we went into the Big House and put it on ’em.”
(Top photo of Dennis Dixon: Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)
