Which One of the Remaining Games Worries You Most?

Most Duck fans are panic-prone. It isn't that we lack faith in the team or confidence in their talent; we've seen too many bad things happen to good people. Nate in 2010. Dennis in 2007. Kellen in 2005. We've seen too many seasons turn on one quirky play or one overstressed body part. There's a nightmare lowlight reel in our heads, Colvin at the half-foot line, Byrd in the monsoon at the six, James Rodgers on the fly sweep, Nebraska in the last BCS unveiling of 2001. We believe, but we won't take a full, deep, celebratory breath until the clock hits 00:00 in the last game.

After 115 years, we understand the pain of Cub fans. We don't have Steve Bartman or the goat, but we have Ki-Jana Carter and Terrelle Pryor. We've been voted out of bowl games and denied a shot that was earned on the field. We've watched field goals go wide right in the cold night air. We've watched our star quarterback have the worst game of his life at the worst possible time. We've watched a starting tailback turn himself into Mike Tyson after one ill-timed tap on the shoulder. We've been laughing stocks, bridesmaids, also-rans and abject failures, charter members of the crummy game of the week club, longtime residents in The Bottom Ten. Those days are gone, but the sting remains. We want our Red Sox moment, the season when the curse is not only lifted but smashed forever.

There are a hundred reasons to worry, and we invent new ones every day. Will DT stay healthy? Will Bennett keep his redshirt? Does LaMichael avoid the temptation of the NFL? Will Coach Alliotti fall in love again with the three-man rush? How do you stop Shane Vereen/Marvin Jones/Mike Mohamed/Cameron Jordan/Nick Foles/Nic Grigsby/Brooks Reed and Ricky Elmore/Quizz Rodgers/Ryan Katz/Stephen Paea? This is the best start in school history, three games from perfection and Oregon's first national title game, but there's a secret part of us that fears a twist of fate or a twist of a knee will happen again, and 2010 will just be a crueler version of the disappointments of the past, the 6-0 starts that fizzled into bowl losses to BYU or Wake Forest. Duck fans are like expectant children, tired of grandpa reading the same cautionary tale. Baby New Year holds the other shoe between two tiny fingers. Father Time has the conclusion of the dream in one of his pockets, and you just hope the addled old fool remembers where he put it this time.

Then there's the national championship game itself. Five weeks of buildup. Five weeks for the opposing coaches to scheme and heap up the false flattery. Five weeks to worry about Cameron Newton or Ed Wesley or Kellen Moore and all the ways they can torment a defense on third and five. In my head I can see every crazy, improbable are-you-kidding-me bounce of that fumble LeGarrette Blount kicked into the Ohio State end zone from the twenty.

Each one of the remaining games has its pitfalls, the potential scenario where the iceberg appears out of the fog, or an icy Saturday becomes Fog Bowl II. Brock Mansion could suddenly find his groove, become the second coming of Nate Longshore. Stoops could have an afternoon where all his crazy strategies start rolling sevens. The Quizz could dart and dash and wiggle and squirm to one of his unstoppable days, and the Beavs could take down Oregon the way they tormented USC the last few years.

Which game has you worried most? Or is it time to stop worrying, and say, in Chip We Trust, and simply enjoy the ride of our lives?