Party Like It's 1999

Ten years ago, Oregon football was in a much different place. And so was I.

Just an 18 year old freshman that couldn’t tell Agate from University, I wandered into Autzen Stadium on the night of September 25, just days after arriving on campus. I’d been to a game before when I was about six, but with little memory of the event. Even if I could remember that day, it’s safe to say it was nothing like this.

This was a night game and this was USC.

I’d arrived at the game by way of a standing room only ticket having not been able to secure one of the student variety. Even though I’d been a fan as a kid, at this moment, standing at the top of the student section for the first time, I felt out of place. It was like I was in a room with 45,000 people that knew something I didn’t.

What they knew was what I was about to discover. Oregon football is fun.

My immersion took only a full game and three overtimes. The intoxication that had me at hello involved a roller coaster of sinking feelings and utter joy that would eventually be capped by complete euphoria. On that night, the leg of a backup kicker gave Oregon a 33-30 win and, me, an addiction.

It was an unforgettable moment in the middle of a historical run that saw Oregon increase its win total every season from 1997 to 2001. Included were some monumental achievements including the school’s first ever 10 win season. Oregon’s journey would eventually reach a  remarkable crescendo when it finished number two in the country after winning the 2002 Fiesta Bowl. By the end, a program had been forever changed.

The expectations going forward would be different (and so would the uniforms). The stadium would get bigger, the budget more bloated, the scrutiny more intense and the experience just a little less organic.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s always been exciting and I relish every advancement the program makes. Still, it’s hard to recapture those first moments you experience something, those moments before you realize what it is you’re really doing.

If all of the preceding seems dramatic, just know it’s simply to say, it feels like we’re there again, like it’s 1999 and we’re about to take in something special for the first time.

Maybe it’s the Halloween setting or perhaps it’s the magnitude of what’s at stake as the nation’s attention shines on little ol’ Eugene. Certainly, there’s a growing sense that Chip Kelly, the first year head coach, is piloting the beginning stages of Oregon’s next evolutionary step into college football’s elite.

Whatever it is, the excitement is palpable even if you’re experiencing it through a computer 975 miles away. Something special is brewing in Eugene. You know it, I know it and on Saturday, the whole country will know it.