Like the country's population, the best players go to warm weather locales in large numbers. For a few years now UO has bucked this trend with innovation and aggressive recruiting, and a steady infusion of Phil Knight's generosity.
While teams like Michigan, Notre Dame and Penn State have declined in the national pecking order, the Ducks have emerged as a flashy frontrunner.
Duck fans have to wonder though, what happens without Mr. Knight, or without Chip Kelly's driving energy? The last few years of sustained success have made Duck fans giddy with the taste of it, and bold in the assumption that things will stay this way for the foreseeable future.
An unfavorable result from the NCAA probe would be a huge jolt. So often when the trench coats and lap tops from Indianapolis come to a college football town, they stumble upon one thing while asking their questions about another. It's a fishing expedition, but they don't care if their catch gets hooked in the gill or flops into the boat. They just want a picture and a trophy, or to take a trophy away.
In the words of the immortal Don Henley, Randy Meisner and Glen Frey,
"If it all fell to pieces tomorrow/Would you still be mine?"
For now the Ducks will take it to the limit of their talent, and give a death stare to distractions, but Matt Barkley, Nick Foles, Chris Polk and Andrew Luck are lining up for an opportunity to kill the dream. Should the Ducks dispatch that row of assassins, they might earn another chance at the Oklahomas or Alabamas of the world, and an opportunity to announce they've completely arrived, that the promised land is truly their own.
What's certain is, in less than a week they get to suit up and practice football again, and the first perfectly arced spiral off the talented right hand of Darron Thomas will be a welcome sign of spring. It will convince Duck fans in a way that another rainy Thursday afternoon never can.
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