the Ducks\u2019 defensive masterpiece<\/a>. They forced four turnovers, including two interceptions and a fumble recovery by freshman Brandon Finney. The second of Finney\u2019s picks came at the start of the fourth quarter, as a desperate Texas Tech offense tried to get on the scoreboard. He plucked a pass from the sky in the back corner of the end zone, next to where a stadium worker was polishing the Orange Bowl trophy.<\/p>\nPoetic, much?<\/p>\n
A team that has relied on its special teams to win games, has ridden its flying offense to victory and ground out defensive struggles, simply pulverized the Red Raiders. Oregon controlled the clock for nearly two-thirds of the game and ran 81 plays to their opponents\u2019 62. And picked up 16 first downs to their nine. Most critically, they made defensive stops whenever it appeared the little engine that could was about to rumble to life.<\/p>\n
Play like that a week from now, and there is every reason to believe the Ducks will, in fact, return to Hard Rock Stadium, home of legends and ghosts. <\/p>\n
Against Miami? Sure, why not? If it\u2019s poetry you\u2019re looking for.<\/p>\n
It seemed impossible to be part of Oregon\u2019s triumph on Thursday and not consider that they might soon return, even though that\u2019s the sort of thing teams never care to admit. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou want to be where your feet (are),\u201d Moore said when I asked him about it, \u201cbeing in the present moment. … Of course that\u2019s every team\u2019s goal, but you can never look too far ahead. We\u2019ve got to worry about the next day.\u201d<\/p>\n
A few minutes later, Oregon athletic director Rob Mullens joked to me, \u201cDon\u2019t try to get us looking ahead now.\u201d<\/p>\n
I think there is little risk of that. Lanning\u2019s a master of coaching to the moment that is in front of him.<\/p>\n
He is also a cunning motivator. He does his research. He is the man who has fueled his team with clips from \u201cGladiator\u201d and made rallying cries of \u201ckeystone species\u201d and \u201ca thousand cuts.\u201d<\/p>\n
I suspected he might be familiar with Rivers\u2019 fabled tactic and maybe even inspired by it.<\/p>\n
As Lanning strode back to the Ducks locker room after his postgame news conference, I caught up to him.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you know what Doc Rivers did at Staples Center?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
At first he looked puzzled and I thought I had struck out.<\/p>\n
Then he offered that little lopsided grin, same as the one when he delivers a clever answer to an interviewer or, I assume, when he conceives of a play to outsmart his opponent, like the Ducks\u2019 fake punt in the second quarter against Texas Tech. <\/p>\n
\u201cOh, you mean when he put the money up in the…?\u201d<\/p>\n
His voice trailed off as he pointed toward the ceiling.<\/p>\n
Yeah, that. <\/p>\n
His eyes twinkled.<\/p>\n
\u201cUh-huh,\u201d Lanning said. <\/p>\n
He knew. Of course he knew.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m ahead of ya,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Then he walked off, one more legend taking up permanent residence inside these walls alongside who knows what else. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. \u2014 There is more than you know inside the walls of Hard Rock Stadium. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383612,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-383611","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}