Oregon 63, Washington State 14 | Final

Another “rebuilding year” loss, I suppose.

I don’t know when I’m going to warm up to that phrase, but I suspect it won’t be any time soon. Just because fans don’t expect much out of the team doesn’t make it any better when the team performs poorly. Especially when it’s this bad.

There really aren’t any answers, nor anything to be said that can take the sting off this game. We lost pretty badly. You can take some solace in the play of Lobbestael, at least in the first half. Brandon Gibson was outstanding, as usual, and managed to get another 100-yard game. But for every bright spot, there’s far more sore spots to make up for it. Blout and Johnson had 3 rushing touchdowns apiece, and Jaison Williams added two of his own receiving. Aside from one or two drives, the defense didn’t look like it stood a chance until the fourth quarter, when Oregon was playing guys who last week probably didn’t know what a football (their injury list is nearly as long as ours). Don’t even get me started on the comparative rushing statistics.

I don’t want to be too pessimistic, as the Cougar faithful will still be here to root on the team. Though The stands will be noticeably emptier when the Cougars take the field again in Martin Stadium against USC on Oct. 18 (even moreso because USC won’t be No. 1 anymore), and get their heads pounded in. It’s the curse of the sports fan, but alas it’s one we must all bear.

The allure of sports comes down in large part to the “any given day” phenomenon. The best example is golf, where on any given day, you can play as well as Arnold Palmer, Tiger Woods or Jack Nicklaus. You probably won’t shoot 10 birdies in a round, but the chance is still there. For fans, the thought in the back of your head is that on any given day, your team might rise up. On a balmy Autumn night in Autzen, your team might be the ones to knock off the No. 1 team in the country. So you don’t give up on your team, no matter how badly you’re losing. It’s why you find those students willing to brave the cold, hard concrete out in front of the stadium gate from the wee hours of the morning. It’s why, despite the fact the Cougars are down by almost 50 points at the beginning of the fourth quarter, the student section is almost half full.

So we’ll cling to that hope, and come back out to Martin Stadium to root on our Cougars against the Trojans. Because you just never know.