Oregon Ducks

Oregon Ducks

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — He'd won nothing yet. No conference championship. No Heisman Trophy. No Johnny Unitas Award. No nothing.

Maybe Marcus Mariota sped around Levi's Stadium in the second half like a guy whose feet barely touched turf because he was playing with a couple of empty pockets on Friday night.

Oregon blistered Arizona 51-13 to win the Pac-12 championship. Mariota threw for 303 yards, and accounted for five touchdowns (three rushing, two passing). And while this wasn't as graceful as a ballet or as fluid as the symphony — the Ducks had 12 penalties and started the game by littering field goals all over the place — the victory ends up a booming statement by a program that badly needed to make one.

The College Football Playoff selection committee gathered in Dallas and watched the conference title game as a group. They'll also watch Alabama play Missouri on Saturday in the SEC Championship. But as a prelude the committee watched one-loss UO untie the ugly knot Arizona put in the Ducks' schedule at Autzen Stadium in Week 5.

Now, had the Ducks simply executed this task as if they were taking out the trash, it would have been fine. The UA demon would have been exorcized. The questions about that seven-point loss would have been answered. The past would have been the past.

In fact, the Ducks started the game so tight, so sputtering, so inexplicably sloppy to start, that anyone who watched them began to wonder if they knew America was watching.

Then, Mariota and his teammates got busy making a statement.

No. 2 Oregon rolled out a convincing case for itself as the No. 1 team in America. Current top-ranked Alabama will have an opportunity to answer on Saturday. But with 640 yards of offense, and 31 first downs, and 51 blistering points on a neutral field, this was a back-alley whipping pulled center stage.

Arizona, the No. 7 team in the playoff rankings, was shut out until the third quarter, and didn't score its final six points until the last play of regulation. It looked anemic, lifeless and done. Linebacker Scooby Wright tossed his snacks on the sideline. Quarterback Anu Solomon looked skittish. Coach Rich Rodriguez had no answers, especially when he was asked for a statement after the game.

"That wasn't a good night," he said. "Next (question)."

If this game were an election, it would have been called late in the second quarter. The state of Arizona hasn't seen this sort of thrashing since LBJ went four-wide and rolled Barry Goldwater (R-AZ) in the 1964 presidential election 44-6 in states won.

"Sometimes you refer to the skill guys, but it's not just the skill guys," Rodriguez said. "They're very athletic across the board."

Now. To be fair. Anyone who has watched Mariota-led Oregon this season knows the quarterback and his teammates had an "off" night to start. He threw 13 incompletions, every one of them in the first half. He missed some throws he normally makes. He appeared to be pressing for the first time since anyone can remember. He just looked — off. But then, the second half started and Mariota pulled out the surgeon's scalpel.

After the break, Mariota was a perfect 11 of 11 for 123 yards and two touchdown passes. He darted, and dashed, and looked again like the best college football player in America. Mariota was asked in the preseason by Oregon's athletic department staff if he wanted them to mount a Heisman Trophy campaign for him this season. After all, he'd given UO the gift of coming back for a junior season, and the possibilities were low-hanging fruit.

"No thanks," came Mariota's answer.

He'd mount that campaign himself, thank you.

The playoff selection committee has an unenviable task. We all know they have a difficult decision with the No. 4 team. But what Oregon did on Friday was give the 13-member committee a headache at the top, especially even should Alabama win but fail to look dominating against Missouri.

That top seed matters because Florida State feels like the No. 4 team, and the easiest out in the semifinal round. The Seminoles are the defending champions, and have the reigning Heisman winner at quarterback. They're winners, and undefeated, but they're also ripe.

What's changed at Oregon since week No. 5?

Nobody wants to play them anymore.

The Ducks healthier at some key positions, and vastly improved at some others. They're humming now, as always on offense, but especially now on defense. They've come through that home defeat that raised so many questions not by unraveling but by galvanizing — like fingers forming a fist. And Mariota is the big knuckle, right in the middle.

Oregon knows how to win.

It's that simple.

"It's a different team this time of year," Ducks coach Mark Helfrich said.

Helfrich deserves a boatload of credit for pulling this group together. It was not just talent, but coaching, and leadership, that results in a ride like this. Only question now is whether he can finish the parade with a bow in Jerryworld.

These Ducks know what winning big tastes like now. They know what it smells like. They know how to do the little things that result in victory. It's the same feel and formula that Florida State patented last season on the way to that title game victory over Auburn.

In fact, after the game, during the trophy presentation, the sight from high above is the one that fans needed to see. As I wrote this paragraph, looking down from the eighth level of Levi's Stadium, watching UO accept its trophy, the most interesting sight developed. As the Ducks stood on that platform in the end zone together, there was plenty of space behind them and around the edges. But they stood so tightly packed you couldn't see any space between them.