The 2010s: The players, moments and games that defined Oregon Ducks football

EUGENE, Ore. — The 2010s are complicated when it comes to Oregon football.

In the ’90s, Rich Brooks and Mike Bellotti began to turn a long-time moribund program into one that was respectable. The 2000s established a consistent pattern and an expectation of winning, with notable players such as Joey Harrington and Haloti Ngata changing the way the program was viewed from a national standpoint.

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The 2010s, though: No decade in Oregon football had the highs that this decade provided. Oregon reached its first national championship game in the 2010 season, and the Ducks reached the title game again after the 2014 season.

The decade featured the best of Chip Kelly’s blur offenses. There were ever-changing jerseys and jaw-dropping facilities and a relatively unknown kid from Hawaii who became the best player in college football.

The decade had its downs, too. A coach was fired for the first time in 40 years. There was an historically bad defense and a mercenary coach who came to Oregon, won seven games, then bolted for Florida State before the Ducks even finished the season.

Now, there’s Mario Cristobal, who oversees a new-look Oregon team that features a new-found identity that puts as much emphasis on work in the offseason as it does during the season.

Here’s a look back at the decade.

ALL-DECADE TEAM

OFFENSE
QB: Marcus Mariota
RB: Royce Freeman
RB: LaMichael James
WR: Josh Huff
WR: Dillon Mitchell
TE: Pharaoh Brown
T: Jake Fischer
T: Penei Sewell
G: Shane Lemieux
G: Calvin Throckmorton
C: Hroniss Grasu

DEFENSE

L: DeForest Buckner
L: Taylor Hart
L: Jalen Jelks
LB: Kiko Alonso
LB: Michael Clay
LB: Troy Dye
LB: Justin Hollins
CB: Ifo Ekpre-Olomu
CB: Cliff Harris
S: John Boyett
S: Erick Dargan

SPECIAL TEAMS

K: Aidan Schneider
P: Blake Maimone
Returner: De’Anthony Thomas

MOST MEMORABLE MOMENTS

Oregon clinches BCS title game appearance

The Ducks beat Oregon State 37-20 on Dec. 4, 2010. The call from Jerry Allen: “Thirty-eight seconds. Thomas takes the snap. The field is rushed by players and the fans want to come out and won’t be able to, but they’ll celebrate in the stands as the team heads down to the end zone. And fans everywhere, 114 years they’ve waited. Ten seconds on the clock. And Oregon is going to play in the national championship game. Two. One. It’s official. Oregon is going to be in the BCS Championship Game. Can you believe the magical season this has become? And it’s not over.”

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Marcus Mariota wins Heisman

Oregon’s guy became the nation’s guy on Dec. 13, 2014. Sure, Eugene has had its folk heroes, guys who were legends in Autzen and rightfully own spots in Oregon history. But there was only one Marcus. And after a season in which he set nearly every record in Oregon’s book, Mariota became the first Heisman winner in school history. “I am honored to be standing here,” Mariota said at the podium. “This award belongs to my teammates. The amount of sacrifice they have made is not unnoticed.”

Jameis Winston’s fumble

What’s your memory of the Rose Bowl following the 2014 season, which served as a semifinal in the first College Football Playoff? That’s a rhetorical question. It can only be the Jameis Winston fumble. The one that happened on fourth-and-5 with Oregon up 19 with less than three minutes to go in the third quarter. The Ducks had Mariota, but FSU had Winston, the reigning Heisman winner, already a national champion and the presumed No. 1 pick in the 2015 draft. Then pressure came. Then Winston tried to avoid it. Then the ball was in the air. Then Winston was on the ground and Tony Washington was running downfield, sealing Oregon’s spot in its second championship game.

Mark Helfrich’s firing

The writing was on the wall, but the news still hit like a ton of bricks on Nov. 29, 2016: For the first time in 40 years, the Oregon Ducks fired a coach. And the school fired a guy, Mark Helfrich, who had led it to a national championship appearance just two years before. But after an abysmal 4-8 season that featured a 70-21 loss to Washington and a Civil War blowout, athletic director Rob Mullens officially made the call on a chilly Tuesday night. “No one wanted Mark to be more successful at Oregon than me,” Mullens told reporters. “For the past several months, I’ve grown concerned over the direction of the program. We were not competitive in a number of games and we were on a poor trajectory.”

Kayvon Thibodeaux commits to Oregon

Just two years after Helfrich’s firing and one year after his replacement, Willie Taggart, left Oregon for Florida State before the Las Vegas Bowl, who saw this coming on Dec. 15, 2018? A prospect regarded as one of the top five in the nation, in a room filled with family and friends wearing Alabama hats, announced on ESPN that he would be attending Oregon. Once Oregon hired Mario Cristobal to replace Taggart, things quickly started moving in Oregon’s favor. The Ducks started rebuilding, they hit the recruiting trail hard and Thibodeaux’s commitment was the cherry on top of a best-ever Oregon class that punctuated the Ducks’ return to relevancy.

TOP GAMES

No. 7 Michigan State at No. 3 Oregon, Sept. 6, 2014

The hype for this one built in the offseason when Ducks stars Marcus Mariota, Ifo Ekpre-Olomu and Hroniss Grasu announced they would return for the 2014 season. It could be a special season, many figured, and the No. 3 Ducks would be tested early with a home matchup against a physical Michigan State team. “College GameDay” was on campus. The sun was shining. Autzen was packed. And the Ducks looked to be in trouble. Oregon trailed 27-18 midway through the third quarter and was facing a third-and-10 when Mariota hit Royce Freeman with the now-famous shovel pass that went for 17 yards. Oregon scored a TD five plays later, the first of three touchdowns in a bit more than five minutes. Oregon ended up winning 46-27 and positioned itself firmly in the College Football Playoff conversation.

No. 2 Oregon vs. No. 1 Auburn, Jan. 11, 2011

Oregon’s first national championship appearance had to make it in here. Cam Newton-led Auburn took a 19-11 lead early in the second half, and Auburn’s physical defense stymied the Ducks’ high-powered attack. But LaMichael James’ TD with 2:33 left made it 19-17, and Darron Thomas hit Jeff Maehl with a 2-point conversion pass to tie it. Then came the final Auburn drive. Then came Michael Dyer. Then came Wes Byrum’s last-play field goal for a 22-19 Auburn win. A sad result for Oregon fans, but a fantastic viewing experience for the rest of the country. More than anything, it set a precedent: The Oregon Ducks were for real and could compete with anyone.

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Oregon at Arizona State, Nov. 25, 2015

Neither team had much to play for at that point in the season. The Sun Devils were hovering just below .500, and the Ducks had just resurfaced for air following Vernon Adams Jr.’s broken thumb. So all they did on this night in Tempe was play the #Pac-12AfterDark game to end all #Pac-12AfterDark games. Oregon’s 61-55 win in three overtimes featured a combined 1,241 yards of total offense. It featured a Houdini act from Adams to find Dwayne Stanford in the end zone to tie the game at the end of regulation. There was Bralon Addison’s toe-dragging go-ahead touchdown in the third OT, then Arrion Springs’ game-ending interception. Did the game mean much? No. Was there a more entertaining Ducks game from start to finish this decade? No.

PLAYER OF THE DECADE

QB Marcus Mariota

This decade saw some of the best players in Oregon history. James was outstanding. So, too, were the likes of Buckner, Ekpre-Olomu and Thomas, among others. But no player did the things Mariota did. He was the pinnacle player of the pinnacle era of Oregon football, a perfect blend of the speed, flash, technical wizardry and downright coolness that defined one of the most famous offenses in college football. He could run. He could pass. He was a leader on and off the field. He is Oregon’s lone Heisman winner, and if there were any doubt about his standing at Oregon, the school naming a building after him within two years of his departure should remove it. The 2010s were Oregon’s best-ever decade and Mariota was the best-ever decade’s best player.

(Top photo of Marcus Mariota: Joe Robbins / Getty Images)

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