Look, I want to make one thing very clear to Oregon fans: I come in peace. Consider this my welcoming speech to the Big 10. But while I have you here, I also want to give you a friendly warning. If you want to continue to be the whiniest, crankiest, ugliest, most crybaby fan base in the entire country, you’re in for a rude awakening. And I pray your football team is stronger than you’ve portrayed them to be, or they’re in for even bigger problems now that Arizona State is no longer coming to town every other week. I had no idea about this seemingly well-known problem that has been common knowledge on the West Coast for years, because frankly, I don’t consider Oregon to be on the same planet as Ohio State, let alone on the same field. Lions don’t care about lame ducks. But I definitely learned something about it this week.
So I posted this story on my blog on Tuesday because a video was making the rounds saying Oregon was going to nickname itself “That Team Out West” as it heads into the Big Ten. My proof of that statement is not only the video of Kermit the Frog and Fozzie Bear literally saying, “We want to be known that way,” but Dan Lanning setting up the cameras and telling his team no less than 500 times in the first episode of Oregon’s new YouTube series called… “That Team Out West.” Corny? Yes. Attention-seeking? Obvious. Is he trying to meddle in 100-year-old rivalries in the Big Ten? Even Ray Charles would have seen that. But I really had no problem with it. I wrote a blog that, to be clear, on a 0-10 scale of nastiness, said Oregon had the same number of national championships. A big fat zero.
Well, the hippies out west apparently stopped hugging their trees for two seconds and packed up their spray-painted Volkswagen buses to head to the local library where they have free computer access, and I guess one of them happened upon my blog and had a visitor from out of state read to them. Because before you knew it, hundreds of Ducks fans were quacking in my ear. I’ll spare you the dozens of off-season champion banners sent to me about recruiting battles and sweet new uniform combos, but among my personal favorites is the Gotcha Crowd from the Eugene media who used the (1/2) and (2/2) thread system to tag my employer for not following the strict rules of journalism. And misidentifying their media representatives (typical Libs)!
Look, Jackson Naugle, I’m sorry you don’t understand sarcasm, you fucking moron. If you could read beyond a 3rd grade level, you’d realize that the line “two students interviewing a former player for a basic communications course” might be a joke when referring to two grown, full-time working people and Jonathan Stewart being on a podcast together. Is that really what we’re getting in the Big 10? If we absolutely had to get a team without football championships (at least Washington, USC, and UCLA all have them), why don’t we get Oregon State, where at least we know they have brain cells?
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But it wasn’t just the Gotcha Guys that made me realize that this fandom is softer than tissue paper, it was also fools like this guy who told me I shouldn’t give Dan Lanning any more bulletin board material!
Let me say this: If Dan Lanning reads my tweets and blogs and then uses them to “set his team on fire,” then he should be arrested the minute I stop laughing at a supposedly above-average head coach using both university time and resources to print my pretty face for a (always on-camera) pregame speech! It’s called “lighting his team’s ass,” you damn moron. Or do you think Dan Lanning is going to douse his players with gasoline and literally set them on fire? Now if you’re going to moisturize yourself and treat your third degree burns with antibiotic ointment, get out there and remember what Tate said about you! I really don’t know if I can attend a conference with people that stupid. What happened to the Big 10 being the best and brightest minds? Even when I got into the dirt (not literally, you fools from Oregon), I started calling them 0regon because they had no titles and the fools thought it was so the fans wouldn’t look for them and “bully” me.
Bully me? Dude, this is the Big Ten. Your fan base has already shown they’re not ready to compete here…I just hope your football team is a little more impressive. The crowd of Ducks fans that dared me to step foot near Autzen Stadium on October 12th had me laughing out loud. You guys are like the Portland police when violent crimes are being committed right under their noses…you’re not going to do anything.
I can’t wait for the moment when the Ducks finally fly to the Midwest, their clocks cleaned by a combination of cold and a defense that can actually stop nosebleeds, and the camera pans to the crying fans in the crowd who just spent their saved vacation money on a family football road trip. Then I can turn it into a “Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas the Pac 12 no more” meme.
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Oh, and before any of you Oregon fans try to get smart in the replies by citing some random regular season game from years ago that I had literally forgotten about until my mentions were flooded with pictures of it, relax. Here at Ohio State, we don’t hang banners for non-conference wins in Week 2. The last time we played Oregon in a really important game, I took the Natty and her girl.
A fair question before I go: What do Oregon fans brag about? You’d think that given how these fans walk around with that chest puffed out, they’ve actually accomplished something remarkable in the history of the entire sport. But in reality, they’ve won 0 national championships, have a sub-.500 record in bowl games, and haven’t even won the stupid Pac 12 since before Covid. I’ll give them one thing, though: They have an exquisite wardrobe!
I just hope their football team is tougher than their fan base, or the Pac-12 could be revived. If Oregon is as paltry as their fan base, they’ll drop out of the Big 10 and beg to get back into the cupcake conference in November.
