Good Luck Ducks, Week 4: Reverse the Curse

Conference play begins tonight for Oregon. You can essentially throw out everything the Ducks have done so far this season (except the injuries... ouch!) and consider this the first real game of the year. FCS teams and Sun Belt schools don't really test anything, except your patience. The Pac-12 looks scary good this year, too, but it's difficult to gauge who is the clear leader in the conference right now.

Arizona returns to the field this year without Nick Foles. Tonight is their first conference game as well, but they head to Autzen Stadium having already beaten Oklahoma State. Oregon's most quality win came against Fresno State. The big news in Duckland is that sophomore De'Anthony Thomas is on the cover of this week's Sports Illustrated. If it wasn't for the Newsweeks and gossip rags in the breakroom at work, I probably wouldn't have even known that magazines were still being printed anymore. Nevertheless, I went out and got my copy and it's a pretty cool thing. If you're a believer in curses, well, there's that whole SI cover jinx thing, too. The last two times an Oregon player has been on the cover, the Ducks have gone out and had their hats handed to them on the field. Let's hope that isn't the case tonight.

I'm expecting a low scoring game tonight, and I'm cautiously optimistic that Oregon can get the job done in front of the home crowd. The tide seems to be shifting as the Pac-12 seems to be becoming more of a defense-oriented conference. At least, that's what some of the early results this season have been saying.


Arizona's last visit to Autzen resulted in the top-ranked Ducks clinching the Pac-10 title.

Game time is 7:30 PDT with national coverage on ESPN. Go Ducks!