Good Luck Ducks, Week 6: Wherein Kenny Wheaton Inevitably Scores

Another year, another lackluster win over the Washington State Cougars. It seems like the Ducks in the Chip Kelly era seem to save their worst for the Cougs. Fortunately, their worst this year wasn't all that bad, and the second half pretty much mirrored the second half of the Arizona game in that Oregon looked a lot more focused and scored at will (and often.) I don't know what in the world Chip does to his teams in the locker room at halftime, but I want that bottled and sent to all teams that I root for in all sports. In fact, I could use that sort of motivation (verbal or kidney punch, who knows) at my job when I start to feel tired and my mind starts to drift around 2:00pm or so. Forget 5 Hour Energy. Everyone just needs some New Hampshire style sass talk from a dude in a Ducks visor.

The Huskies are up next, and UO finds themselves back at Autzen for the 5th time in 6 weeks. It's another night game, and it also will be the first conference game I've attended in quite some time. I haven't seen the Huskies play in person since Kenny Wheaton's Gonna Score (spoiler alert: he scored!) I haven't talked about the cards I post here in awhile, so I figured I'd break out something special this time. I recently dug up a couple mostly uncut sheets of a set I didn't realize I still had. I spent the entire first season of Good Luck Ducks (2008) featuring cards from the 1994 Oregon team issued set (the Rose Bowl year) and this summer stumbled across some sheets from the 1995 team, which was the even better Cotton Bowl bound squad. That team was superior in every way with Tony Graziani at the helm, but USC had a better conference record that year and benefit from Oregon defeating the Huskies. The sheets of cards are not in the best shape - certainly worse than the 1994 sheet - but I was glad to find them nonetheless. This particular card is perfect, as it's a picture of The Pick, the defining moment of the Rise of the Oregon Ducks football program and also easily my all-time favorite sports memory witnessed in person.

The big news around Huskytown is that they have a tough defense and they recently upset Stanford. If this were a road game, I'd be a little more concerned, but I have a feeling that another late start and a home crowd eager to witness its first home conference game and rivalry to boot will be plenty enough to carry this team to victory over the purple and gold. Also, purple and gold is probably the worst color duo in all of existence. Lakers, anyone? Bleh. Hopefully this week's gimmick plays will be a little more successful and hopefully the team won't need a second half energy boost to put the game out of reach. You never know, though. This is the school that danced and pranced on the 'O' logo at midfield once upon a time.

Touchdown if he doesn't trip? Like Kenny Wheaton isn't gonna score. Geesh.

Game time is 7:30 PDT with national coverage on ESPN. Hopefully I don't fall asleep on the ride home, since it will be well after midnight. Go Ducks!