This weekend played out differently than I had expected for a variety of reasons – not all of which are related to football. Due to some of those vagaries of life that sometimes creep into our days, I decided I needed to take my wife to Bend and spend a night away from home. We stayed within walking distance of the Old Mill District and were able to have a nice dinner at a local seafood restaurant.
Some good seafood and some good wine along with a nearly perfect fall evening that allowed us to sit outside, and people-watch while we had dinner made for the perfect getaway. We took the long way home down the McKenzie Highway just to get some more time with the beauty that the state of Oregon has to offer. It was a sort of melancholic feeling as we drove through the fire-damaged areas, but the renewal of the area brought hope.
As I was on my Sunday morning walk today, that thought came to mind about the game last night. It was different because it seems like the new staff are able to create a sense of renewal every week. The talk of most pundits was that Oregon was going to struggle with the pass and that the game would be a shootout. In my own prediction, I thought that Arizona would get a late touchdown to get to 28 points. They did not get a late touchdown and stuck at 22 for the game.
I never bought that it was going to be a shootout because Jayden de Laura is still prone to making mistakes when he gets pressured, and I believed Oregon would be able to do enough to create pressure and force mistakes.
The one offensive key I had to this game was balance. I know the prevailing wisdom was that Arizona was bad against the run so Oregon should just keep pounding the ball. I think that would have played into what Arizona wanted – make the team one-dimensional, overload against that dimension and see what happens. Balance was maintained, which also affects how other teams prepare for Oregon moving forward.
Balance matters.
I am old enough to have watched the original Karate Kid in a theater – as a high school senior. For those that remember, balance is what Mr. Miyagi preaches to his pupil about life: when you have balance throughout your whole life, everything is better. Without balance in any area, then life is unbalanced.
That is the real lesson from the last week for me: I needed the balance of the trip to Bend Friday as much as my wife. Football season always brings a lack of balance at times because I invest a lot of time and energy into covering the season for Duck Sports Authority while also working hard to get tailgates ready. I restored some semblance of balance this season by going back to my roots, so to speak, and watching the games from the stands rather than the press box, but I needed that Friday night balance where there was nothing but good times, good scenes, good food, and relaxation.
In some ways, that is the biggest difference I see in the 2022 version of Oregon football. Not only do they have balance on the field, but they also look like they have ‘whole life’ balance. College football at the highest level is a full-time job. Going to school is also a full-time job. Sometimes those two things create disharmony among the players, making it difficult to work so hard at two things. Eventually, without life balance, the intensity, and conflicting agenda of those two jobs takes their toll and implode in on not just the individuals, but the entire team. I got that feeling toward the end of last season that a lack of balance created an implosion.
Maybe over time, those two things will collide into another implosion, but for now, the biggest difference from this outside perspective is that the team and the players have a new balance that is making them better people – and when that happens, cohesion and teamwork are sure to follow.
With a bye week coming, my own sense of balance feels really good and I think I see something similar with this team.
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