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Oregon Ducks vs Oregon State Beavers Preview

Thursday, 9 PM ET, ESPN

For so long, the state of Oregon has existed in the shadows, obscure and off the radar for most of America's college football fans.

Not anymore.

Mention West Coast football, and most casual observers will immediately think of USC. Boise State has also owned the BCS bowl spotlight in recent years, while Utah and now TCU have stepped into the big arena on behalf of the Mountain West Conference. Through the past few seasons, a lot of fine football's been played in Oregon, but an absence of BCS bowl berths has allowed many Americans to ignore the dynamic deeds of the Oregon State Beavers and the Oregon Ducks.

What have the Beavers achieved in the Mike Riley era? Located in out-of-the-way Corvallis, a program with comparatively few resources has won at least eight games in five of the past seven seasons. The Beavs have had only one losing season since Riley replaced Dennis Erickson in 2003, and in each of the past two years, they've come within one win of the Rose Bowl.

Guess who knocked them out last year? Uh-huh: Oregon.

Guess who's trying to snatch the Rose Bowl from Oregon State this time around? Yup -- the very same Ducks who waltzed into Reser Stadium in 2008 and ruined OSU's plans for Pasadena in a 65-38 romp featuring 694 yards of total offense and two pick-sixes.

Oregon State's run of consistency has been incredibly overlooked, but the body of work produced by Oregon - while more noticed on a national scale - has still not received enough praise.

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Former coach and current UO athletic director Mike Bellotti merely won the third-highest amount of Pac-10 games in league history, behind only UCLA's Terry Donahue and Washington legend Don James. Oregon won the 2001 Pac-10 title and that season's Fiesta Bowl over Colorado, but a national title game snub ( Nebraska was unfairly given the BCS stage against Miami, when UO earned a true No. 2 national ranking) didn't put the Ducks in the forefront of the nation's consciousness. UO continued to win consistently in this soon-to-end decade, piling up at least nine wins in four of the past five seasons and having only one losing campaign, in 2004, but the program's virtues have gone largely minimized because of the dominance displayed by the big, bad Trojans from Los Angeles.

Now, however, USC is finally out of the Pac-10 picture. Now, a prime-time focus will zero in on Autzen Stadium and an electric environment for the Civil War in Eugene. Now, one assemblage of Oregonians - the visitors from Corvallis or the homestanding Quack Attack - will sew up a spot in Pasadena on Jan. 1 against Ohio State.

The mother of all Civil Wars will be played for the Granddaddy. At long last, the state of Oregon will enjoy a long-overdue moment in the sun.

By Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Staff Writer