our third game of the 2009 season was at home vs 18th ranked Utah
#18 Utah @ Oregon
PREGAME
the week in between purdue and utah was the first full week of school so i got to meet some new people and kind of get to know them a little bit
a few people i met that really stood out to me and i became friends with quickly were Robyn Nielsen, Maddi Tangney, Ian Brewer and Sophie Turnberg
in Mr. Karl’s class, i sat right next do Ian and Maddi so i talked a lot with them. in marine bio class, i’d always be in the back talking with Robyn, Sophie and their guy friends often about my ducks and the rest of college football
in Mr. Karl’s class, i told Ian and Maddi how i’d been to oregon’s first two games and that i’m a season ticket holder, they found that pretty cool! on friday i told them i was going to the utah game the next day and so Maddi told me to have fun, which i always do 🙂
so friday after school, my mom and i drove down to eugene
i was excited as usual, but a little bit more because we had the #18 team in the country in our house
when i woke up saturday morning in the hotel, it was raining outside
my mom asked if i wanted to wait till closer to kickoff to be dropped off
i told my mom “no, this is my team and i’ll sit in the rain for 2 hours watching warm-ups”
so i got on my ducks gear and she dropped me off at Autzen
i sat in the rain along with the student section watching warm-ups
the students always come super early because they’re always full of energy
by the time the game rolls around, i’m totally soaked
Don Essig, our PA anouncer comes on and says “for all the utah fans, we call this a sprinkle because IT NEVER RAINS IN AUTZEN STADIUM”
GAME
utah got the ball first, autzen was loud
utah goes 3 and out, punts the ball
oregon’s walter thurmond III returns the punt for a TD!! 7-0 ducks over #18 utah!
i’m thinking “alright we’re in business here”
then utah drives down field and scores to make it 7-7
then on our first offensive drive, jeremiah masoli completes a long pass to jeff maehl and lamichael james punches it in for a TD!! 14-7 ducks!
halfway through the 2nd quarter, utah has the ball on our side but we get them to 4th down
they go for it so autzen is super crazy loud! we get a sack, oregon ball still up 14-7!
next play, masoli bubble pass to jamere holland, he sprints into utah territory!
we’re up on #18 utah 14-7 and we have the ball looking to score again!
then after a masoli first down run, he fakes the handoff to LMJ and the defensive end crashes, so masoli keeps it and walks into the endzone from 20 yards out, TD ducks!!!!! 21-7 ducks!
after a utah field goal to make it 21-10, oregon has the ball early in the 3rd quarter
on 2nd and 2, LMJ (lamichael james) busts out for a big gain!
up by 11 versus #18 utah and looking to score again! i think we’re gonna win this game, yea!!
jeremiah masoli keeper again off the zone read, TD ducks!! 28-10 oregon!!!
(sometime during the game, one of the bleachers where the utah students were sitting came loose so they simply tore it off, it was funny! they passed the bleacher up row by row till it got to security and they took it somewhere to be fixed i suppose, i just laughed at how funny that was!)
anyways utah scored to make it 28-17
then with the ball, masoli fumbled it and utah picked it up and took it for a TD, 28-24 ducks
i was super mad because we had just pissed an 18 point lead down the drain in the blink of an eye
5 minutes left in the game, utah has the ball but they throw a pick and i’m going crazy!!
oregon gets a field goal to make it 31-24 ducks with 3 minutes left to go!
then Don Essig comes on and says that UW has beaten USC and there were duck fans that cheered which pissed me off so i just went off on a rant to my section mates! i turned around and yelled this at everyone in my section:
“why did you cheer for UW?!! thats the sin of all sins! we’re duck fans, we NEVER EVER cheer for the dawgs, even against USC! a true ducks fan wants UW to go 0-12 every single god damn fucking year!!! if you just cheered for the huskies, shame on you! that’s all i’ve got to say, i’m disappointed in you all”
i’m pretty sure that hit hard because the look on the faces of the people in my section after that speech was one of guilt, like everyone knew they had just done something horribly wrong
since then, autzen has never cheered when the UW score is anounced. whenever its anounced that UW is winning, everyone erupts in boo’s. when its anounced that UW is losing, everyone yells and cheers.
we HATE UW, they can lose ALL of their games every year as far as oregon is concerned
back to the game
with 2 minutes left, utah is driving to tie the game and all of a sudden, INTERCEPTION!!! 31-24 ducks we’re going to win!
we kneel the ball and the clock expires game over!! ducks win ducks win!!! oregon 31, #18 utah 24!
we’re now 2-1 on the season and i’m super happy!
Don Essig comes on and says “sorry for the weather folks, thank you for staying through the rain you all are tough souls” atleast something like that, whatever it was he said, it made me smile
POST GAME
after celebrating a bit, i took the bus back to the hotel where i gulped down a couple gatorades and ate that deeeeeeelicious cinnamon pizza!
on the drive home, my mom and i talked about our next game vs #6 California
she didn’t want to go to that game because oregon was undefeated with my mom’s side of the family being there and she didn’t want to lose that family pride of being undefeated
i told my mom that without her, we can’t beat #6 Cal
i said if we beat cal, we set up a showdown with usc
i told her “our only chance to get to the rose bowl is if we beat cal, and without you we can’t beat cal”
my mom asked me how in the world is oregon gonna beat the 6th ranked team in the country when when we only beat #18 by 7 and got our ass kicked by #14 boise state
i told her that we have a new offensive line and it takes an offensive line 5 games to jell, and with everything on the line on our 4th game, there’s a decent chance our Oline will jell one game earlier
i told her if our Oline can come together one game early, we can beat Cal
she finally gave in and said she’ll go instead of my dad, and i was happy of course!
(just so everyone knows, as of today, oregon is 13-0 when i go to games with my moms side of the family. when i go with my dad’s side of the family, oregon is 12-5.. so that should tell you why i go to the BIG games with my moms side, atleast thats my first choice)
so yea, then we got home and my mom dropped me off at my dads house cause i had school the next day
i didn’t do any homework i just slept cause those oregon trips are EXHAUSTING!
when i slept, i thought of all the stories i could tell Maddi and Ian the next day
here are highlights from the game
adamkendall2 