The day of calling ourselves Rose Bowl champions has finally came, and what better fashion than setting a few records while doing it! Sure we almost let them complete the impossible after giving up 62 yards in 16 seconds and if it weren’t for the misjudgment of spiking the ball with two seconds we could be talking about a whole new subject. But nonetheless it didn’t happen, and the Oregon Ducks along with Chip Kelly have finally ended that BCS slump. Thank goodness.

Now it’s all good from here, sort of. After watching every single play in that Rose Bowl, I can comfortably say that was by far the most outstanding performance of our offense all year long. Every single player was clicking. Yeah LaMichael James didn’t receive as much credit for going 159 yards on the ground along with a rushing touchdown, but what can you say. I mean when players like true freshman DeAnthony Thomas average 77.5 yards per rush attempt thanks to his two stellar touchdown runs, and then Lavasier Tuinei has his best game of the year with 158 yards and two touchdowns. It’s hard to not give those guys the spotlight.

But what about Darron Thomas? Wasn’t that an impressive performance, I think he might’ve read my last blog because that guy had a great game! Yeah I know he threw that one interception and had that fumble recovered for a touchdown, but there isn’t much he could do about either of those plays. But throwing 17/23 with 268 yards through the air. Now that’s what I like to see, especially in that type of spotlight. I think Darron is going to come out and have a breakout season next year just because of the way he finished this year.

Now the only group of players I think should be running hills for their performance was definitely our defensive line. Man were they ugly or what. Yes the Wisconsin offensive line was ginormous and one of the best lines in the nation. But at the least, they could’ve contained Russel Wilson, and not let him sneak around the edges for third down conversions and then how about someone teach our defense how to tackle. I don’t know how many missed tackles there were, but that shouldn’t be acceptable Aliotti. Not if you want to be the best, which I know we all do.

But other than that, I tip my hat off to Chip for finally getting that win, and then sending us into next season with a good comfortable place. We still haven’t heard officially if LaMichael will be entering the NFL draft, but no matter what I know we will be a top 5 team coming into next year setting us up perfectly to make a run at the top. You know if you haven’t noticed there is some sort of pattern going on. We lose the Rose Bowl, we lose the Natty’, we win the Rose Bowl, well what’s that leave us with next year?

Congratulations to the entire Oregon Ducks football program, it was another terrific year and I cannot wait to see what’s in store for next season. Go Ducks!