If you're a State of Oregon football fan, supporting anything with an "O" then you hit for a trifecta over the weekend with Beavs, Ducks and even the Vikings notching wins. Then if you stayed up late and watched Washington and Arizona up in Seattle, you're loyalties were tested. Me? I loathe all 'things Stoops' so I threw my loyalty where is had seldom went for the past several decades. I ventured over to "The Darkside."  I cheered on Husky QB (and all-around good guy) Jake Locker. In a game where Wildcat coach Mike Stoops might as well have pitched a tent out on the "W" at midfield given the amount of time he left the sideline to rant and rave, it was the perfect nightcap. Washington came down from 33-21 in the final four minutes with a fluke interception return for a touchdown and then a textbook Locker-led drive to seal the win. As Al McGuire once said, "it is better to be lucky than good' and Arizona was good but Washington was lucky. After cheering Dawg wins against USC and Arizona and getting depressed about Notre Dame pulling off the win in South Bend, I am offically done rooting for Washington for the rest of the year.

While Stanford proudly boasts 'The Farm' shouldn't Oregon State strip them of that title? Certainly the Beav's stripped the Cardinal of any BCS aspirations on Saturday as Riley's troops took "The Dancing Tree" in back of a real barn and torched it like a Christmas tree that never got watered. If the Beavers are your upcoming game, you'd better be very worried. Without fail they flail and flounder early. They're like sleeping with a cute little teddy beaver in early September but by October and November they're like crawling into bed with a highly agitated bobcat. Just not a lot of fun.  I love the fact that Quizno's finally got on board as an advertiser. If they offered a $1 off coupon for every touchdown Quizz Rodgers scored against Stanford, they're no doubt filing Chapter Seven today. I still think for Halloween, every Beaver fan in Reser Stadium needs to dress like a pirate and hoist the Jolly Rodger's every touchdown James and Jaquizz score. Arrrggghhhhh. Pirates of the Reser-bean?

If there is a state that gets absolutely ZERO love from the national voters when it comes to football polls, its Oregon. Oregon State loses to a really good Cincinnatti team and plummets clear out of the polls. Usually, a team inches up the poll when they win but Oregon's loss to Boise State stung but following wins over Purdue and Utah dropped them totally out of the Top 25. I'd wager that if you put flash cards and "U of O" and "OSU" with the respective mascots, 75% of the East Coast sportswriters would fidget then fail to correctly put the right name on the right school. As for the coaches poll. Total joke. Ducks beat Cal and don't overtake them in that poll. Beav's demolish Stanford an eke ahead by a single vote. Whats the saying? It takes a village of idiots to create a poll?

We have a drinking game...when Chip Kelly reports "Day to Day" on an injury, we get to take a drink. Hiccup.....hiccup. Wouldn't it be neat if Chip during a press conference broke into Godspell's "Day by Day?" I hear he has a nice set of pipes. Lets face it, while contending at the halfway point with the Huskies Steve Sarkisian for Coach of the Year honors in the PAC-10, Oregons Chip Kelly certainly is in line for the Bill Belechick Award given to the coach who loves a good 'cloak and mystery' when it comes to injury reports.

Remember the saying "The Bee's Knees?" Even mentioning that part of the human anatomy with Duck fans is more tender and delicate than a sex education class. Conspiracy theories abound. Some blame Field Turf. Some blame Jim Radcliffe. Some think Oregon is recruiting athletes who have small hips and large thighs which is a genetic meltdown headed for disaster. Some think John Canzano is injecting a dye into the ink the Register-Guard uses in their newspaper that when touched, weakens the knee joints. This week, Oscar Pistorius, the South African sprinter also known as "The Blade Runner" was seen in Eugene and now the rumor is swirling that many of the Oregon football players are taking 'preventive' steps to avoid serious knee injuries by having the leg amputated and being fitted with the new spring-loaded poly-carbon blades that Pistorius made famous. Lending fuel to the fire was Jeremiah Masoli who when asked about his availability for the upcoming Washington game on October 24th only replied "Chicks dig the blade." Said C.E. Kaiser, "I was so sick and tired of getting my shins banged. Now, I have a 42 inch vertical and can dunk. Those blades spring load so that if I get my pad level down, I can not only make pancakes but waffles and Swedish Pancakes out of defensive linemen." Said Kelly, "I know when we come out of the tunnel on Halloween, everyone in Autzen is going to think we've been invaded by kangaroos. Nike has been forced to come up with new pants to accomodate the new motion but it should add another 216 different uniform combinations. Hey, I'm a stat guy. What can I say?!?!" 

Every conference has one. There are the Oakland Raiders in the NFL and the Washington State Cougars in the PAC-10. Teams so down and out right now they are hard to watch. If you have good friends who support either of these two teams, you need to put them on suicide watch right now. My best friend is such a Raider fan. His wife and a core group of friends have contacted the good folks at A and E and they'll be filming a Raider Intervention up in Cipole over the weekend.  We need to have Chip sing "Day by Day" to Sam. Mollycoddle him. Read letters saying we support him and one day, things will get better. It may take a military coup led by Roger Goodell but it will get better. Or maybe taping open the eyelids and making them watch Al Davis croon "Day by Day" over and over like waterboarding some poor schmuck. Make the poor tortured soul say "I'll buy some 49er gear!" would be the catchphrase to make sure they're not faking it.

I still wonder how Arizona State stayed in the sandbox with the Coug's without kicking sand in their face. I wonder if the SunDevils Dennis Erickson is slowly drifting in complacency. After watching his coaching decision's against the Beav's and seeing Riley just do a coaching number on him, I'm really starting to wonder. If there was a silver lining for Cougar fans in Pullman on Saturday, it would be watching Erickson get his clock cleaned by his own receiver flying out of bounds. Erickson with good humor at least noted lots of fans in the Pullman area would like to knock him out after he gave the cursory "I Do" upon the Cougar altar some twenty years back before jilting them for the Miami Hurricanes, which is like leaving Roseanne Barr for Megan Fox. If getting knocked unconscious was the karma debt Erickson incurred for taking advantage of Cougar trust in lieu of two NC rings, small price to pay in my book.