JSeahawks":ie61alj5 said:
Dawgs0":ie61alj5 said:
seahawk2k":ie61alj5 said:
Confused how losing a national championship game on a last second field goal results in Oregon losing their national respect.
I'm sure you will enlighten me though.
Why does how much you lose by matter? Losing is losing. Winning is winning. How much you win or lose by means nothing. It doesn't change the FACT that you won or lost. Maybe you feel differently.
Oregon choked throughout that game. They should have beat Auburn. Choking like they did versus LSU and Auburn lost them respect. Elite level programs (like UO proclaims themselves to be), don't choke like that. (BTW, before you talk about UW, let me just say that I've never said UW is an elite level program, like Oregon fans say UO is. Elite level programs don't choke like that.)
I hate myself for taking your bait again, but what the hell.
Sometimes you lose football games. It doesn't mean you choked. Auburn was a 3 point favorite, and they beat us by three points. Nick Fairley dominated that game.
I am really curious who you would consider the current elite football programs though?
Clearly Alabama is THE elite program of this era. But then, they "choked" a game against A&M last year, so maybe they're not elite either? If you look past them there is nobody who has a better resume in the last 5 years then Oregon and LSU. (LSU has a title, but Oregon has been to more BCS games). If youre the 2nd or 3rd best program in a five year span, I would consider that pretty elite whether you've won a Championship or not.
Choking can mean many things. Choking can be when you play better than another team, but you fail to win. That's what happened in that game. Oregon played better than Auburn and they should have won, but Chip Kelly and Oregon choked. There's no other way to say it. Your team choked.
Of course, when a team loses it doesn't mean they choked. That's obvious. But watching that game, it was easy to see Oregon should have won. They just choked. No other way to say it.
What do you consider this era? IMO, any team that has won a recent National Championship is automatically a better program than Oregon. That is the ultimate prize. That includes a lot of SEC teams. IMO, the point of college football is ""Natty" (like Oregon fans call it) or bust". Alabama, USC (don't care if it's vacated), Texas, Florida, and LSU over the last 10 years have had a better run than Oregon, due to each of their national titles. Their failures outside of those titles matter less, because of their ability to bring the title home, which Oregon has failed to do.
Then you could debate programs like Stanford, who have beaten Oregon and knocked them out of the "Natty" race and have had similar success, in terms of BCS wins. Teams like Oklahoma and Ohio State and Florida State, who haven't won anything, but have had success in their leagues. If you consider this era the last ten years, you could look at USC under Pete, as they had an extremely dominant run.
You can prop up Oregon's PAC 12 wins, in what has been a weak PAC 12 over the last couple years, but when you continuously choke on the national stage (especially against elite SEC opponents) as a program, like Stoned Cold said, you lose credibility as a program. You lose national respect. You lose the opportunity to be called an elite program. Elite programs beat everybody. They don't choke as often as Oregon does.