NCAA Football Oregon

TUCSON, Ariz. -- Here's hoping SEC fans stayed up to watch Oregon beat Arizona Saturday night. They got to see a few things their league hasn't had enough of this season.

Drama, bedlam, theatrics, tension, hilarity and near-riotous fun. And that just begins to describe the Ducks' 44-41 double overtime win.

It finally ended as the clock struck midnight back East. Quarterback Jeremiah Masoli slithered into the end zone to crash what would have been the biggest football party Tucson ever threw.

All of which settled one thing. The Pac-10 is the best conference in America.

Oregon delivered the knockout blow to Arizona, but the Wildcats gave themselves a black eye Saturday night when a bottle thrown by someone in the crowd sent Ducks cheerleader Katelynn Johnson to the hospital in the chaotic aftermath of Oregon's 44-41 double-overtime win.

It was arguably the game of the year in college football. It was certainly further evidence that the Pac-10 is back as a national conference.

After two overtimes and a touchdown with six seconds left in regulation, the Oregon Ducks outlasted Arizona 44-41 to take control of the Pac-10.

For a while, the stars seemed to align for Arizona. California upset Stanford during the the third quarter of the Wildcats' game, bumping one Pac-10 peer from Rose Bowl contention. Meanwhile, Arizona shrugged off a 14-0 deficit to take a 24-14 lead early in the fourth quarter.

However, Oregon then rallied with 17 points in the final frame, including a highlight-worthy touchdown pass from Jeremiah Masoli to Ed Dickson with six seconds left that deflated the home crowd and dispersed the students, who had emerged nearby to storm the field.

TUCSON, Ariz.(AP) -- Jeremiah Masoli tied it with a touchdown pass to Ed Dickson with six seconds left, then won it with a 1-yard run in the second overtime as No. 11 Oregon defeated Arizona 44-41 on Saturday night and took a big step toward the Pac-10 title.

Masoli threw for three scores and ran for three more as the Ducks rallied from a 24-14 deficit early in the fourth quarter.

The Ducks (9-2, 7-1 Pac-10) will earn a Pac-10 title and Rose Bowl berth with a victory over No. 20 Oregon State in a winner-take-all Civil War on Dec. 3 in Eugene.

Saturday was to be the college football return for embattled Oregon tailback LeGarrette Blount, but a funny thing happened along the way -- the Ducks never found a need for him in an impressive 44-21 victory over Arizona State.

The 44 points marked the fourth straight game Oregon's red-hot offense has scored 42 or more. Meanwhile, the cold night at Autzen Stadium seemingly prompted the Duck coaching staff to give Blount -- suspended since Sept. 4 for punching a Boise State player and refusing to leave the stadium peacefully -- the cold shoulder.

As the fourth quarter of CBS's coverage of Alabama-LSU went to commercial break, the cameras caught something extraordinary, an Alabama fan giving the cliched and overused four finger slogan. Okay, nothing extraordinary about that, but, this is when a bit of the Southern Gothic came into your living room, the man only had four fingers, he was missing a pinkie! So he gave the four finger sign utilizing his thumb.

My jaw literally dropped. Judging by everyone's reaction on Twitter, I wasn't the only one. The most shocking thing, of course, is that the fan gave up the pinkie to Nick Saban, wielding a machete, as part of the pregame speech. Good to see they got the bleeding stopped.

But, of course, this moment of four-finger jubilation wasn't the only thing that caught my attention. We've got Alabama, LSU, Notre Dame, Oregon, Cincinnati, and a groom who made it rain at this wedding reception and caused a 40-person brawl. Plus, we learn that 5 yards in Alabama math actually means 5.5 yards.

Dive in and enjoy.

'The Punch' wasn't a knockout after all.

Oregon reinstated running back LeGarrette Blount Monday afternoon, just more than two months after he was suspended for punching Boise State defensive end Byron Hout following the Ducks' Week 1 loss to the Broncos in Idaho.

"I'm grateful to Coach Kelly that he cares enough to offer me this second chance," Blount said in a statement released by the school. "Now it is up to me to prove to people that their lasting impressions of me are not what they saw in Boise."

Blount's suspension was originally announced to be for the season, but on Oct. 2, roughly a month after the Sept. 3 incident, Oregon head coach Chip Kelly said that the running back might returning, pending the senior meeting several conditions.

STANFORD, Calif. -- What a difference a week makes for Oregon.

The Ducks looked invincible and unbeatable a week ago, taking apart USC like they were ... Stanford?

They spent the week answering questions about letdowns and hangovers. No way. Not going to happen. Not us.

But by sunset at Stanford Stadium, the No. 7-ranked Ducks were walking off the field after a 51-42 defeat and there was no doubt they felt the letdown.

"We didn't focus on the past, didn't look to the future. We got beat by a better team," said Oregon coach Chip Kelly. "If you say that we got caught looking behind or ahead, it takes away from Stanford. Stanford is a heck of a football team."

---

---

STANFORD, Calif. (AP) -- Toby Gerhart bowled over the Oregon defense to make the Cardinal bowl eligible for the first time in eight years.

Gerhart ran for a school-record 223 yards and three scores, Andrew Luck threw for two touchdowns and Stanford held on to beat No. 7 Oregon 51-42 Saturday for its all-important sixth win of the season.

The loss by Oregon (7-2, 5-1 Pac-10) just a week after beating Southern California 47-20 opened up the conference race and cost the Ducks any shot at a berth in the Bowl Championship Series title game.

Oregon rallied with two late touchdowns to cut a 20-point lead down to six, but Stanford (6-3, 5-2) recovered an onside kick with 2:38 to go and tacked on Nate Whitaker's third field goal with 11 seconds left. The students rushed the field as the game ended.

One of the most frustrating cliches trotted out by college football's BCS defenders is this banal line: Every game counts. I hate this three-word cliche with the fury of a thousand blazing suns. I hate the smugness with which it's delivered, I hate the fact that no one points out the obvious -- name a sport where the games don't actually count-- but I hate the fact that it isn't even true the most.

In fact, this phrase is positively Orwellian because it leaves off the final part of the sentence. Every game counts ... except some games count more than others. How else to explain the fact that everyone can brush off Boise State's win over Oregon because it happened the first game of the season?

I understand we're dealing with a broken system, but right now Boise State is continuing to plummet as they win. I wrote about the glass ceiling that Boise had reached a couple of weeks ago, but has it really reached the point where we just ignore the first week of the season?