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Welcome back to the Solid Rebel boys and girls. My name is ty Hildebrand, joining me way way over there out of the quarantined New York City. He has made his way west. He has made the cannon ball run to southern California.
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What is our show for tonight? We are making peace? I am making peace with I suppose it's the twenty eleven BCS National Championship game based on the twenty ten season. The game is Oregon Auburn. We are not just going back and we have rewatched and we are going to relive and try to analyze things and rehash things with
twenty twenty eyes, sort of in retrospect. But I also feel it's and I didn't ask you to do this, and I have prepared my own Remember when ace Ventura answers the question, what do you know about Ray Finkel soccer style kicker? Yep, yeah, the twenty ten season, and we will get to the lead up, both in terms of Oregon's twenty ten season and Auburn's twenty ten season.
But the college football season that happened in the fall of twenty ten was I suppose, depending on who you root for and who you care about, kind of perfect the way I like college football and the way you like college football.
So you like your eggs over easy, you like your twenty ten college football season, Like how.
I forgot everything that went and we can get into it right now. I don't know if you want to introduce anything specific or tag anything specific and ask people to follow whatever. At this point, they probably know that we have social media accounts, but no, I already did that. I know you, I already did that. But when you go, I'm ready, and I say this actually completely independent, and we're getting into it of the fact that my team, my alumni, my alumni, my alma mater, the Oregon Ducks,
found themselves in the National Championship game. They go twelve to zero before that game. Completely independent of that. Here is what the twenty ten season gave us, and you can throw a jazzy little number under this beautiful work of art that was the twenty ten season retrospective. We have an incredible Rose Bowl champion TCU team led by Andy Dalton. I think it's Josh Boyce Jeremy Curley out wide.
We have the best Stanford team of the modern era, Andrew Luck, Jim Harbaugh, and a ton of NFL talent everywhere. We have an Ohio State season that technically didn't count because wins were vacated, but it's still a Terrell Prior led Ohio State team coming back from a Rose Bowl win beating Arkansas, and I believe the Sugar Bowl. We have Landry Jones in Oklahoma putting up all sorts of crazy yardage. We have JJ and Scott Tolzen and Wisconsin.
They lose the Rose bull but they have an incredible season, including a win over Ohio State in Camp Randle. You have a Boise State team which maybe played in the game of the season against Nevada, that overtime game decided by a game winning field goal. You have an Alabama team who had four or five head coaches but managed to go ten and three, and that includes a Bowl win, murdering win over Michigan State and a loss to South Carolina. Steve Spurrier in South Carolina, a South Carolina team that
it was the very beginning of their ascendants. They had like a really nice four year run under Steve Spurrier. So that's Stephen Garcia, al Seon Jeffrey and Marcus Lattimore beating Alabama by two touchdowns. That's incredible. You have Colin Kaepernick's senior year. He's obviously an amazing college quarterback running that pistol for Nevada. Ryan Mallett and I want to say it's Jerius right, Joe Adams, Kobe Hamilton for Arkansas.
They're incredible. Mississippi State goes nine to four. Nanny Diaz is the defensive coordinator and and in retrospect, really fun backfield of Chris Ralph and Vick Ballard. You have Florida State, MISSOO and Washington somehow generating first round quarterbacks out of Blaine Gabbert, Christian Ponder and Jake Locker. You have the emergence of Ryan Tannehill converted receiver to quarterback at Texas A and M in there I believe it's second to last year at in the in excuse me, in the
Big twelve. All the while realignment is starting to and continuing to sell out conversationally continue Sorry.
Yes, now, hold on, I was hoping that you would eventually get to my favorite story, yeah, of the twenty ten season, and it really had nothing to do with the.
On field product.
But twenty ten is when all this dust started getting kicked up around conference realignment. And you might remember some publications reported that five of the big public schools in the Big twelve were going to make their way west to the PAC twelve or the PAC sixteen. It was going to become a super conference. This is going to trigger some sort of nuclear winter as it relates to
conference play in college football. Obviously it happened to some extent, not to that drastic extent, but that was a huge talking point, and it was something of like a side gig all to itself, people talking about different possibilities who could end up. Where As you said, it was sort of the beginning of this run up to what eventually was a much more modest realignment.
Think about these are the teams, by the way, that realigned around this time. So and the good teams TCU, Yes, realigned, yep, yep, yeah, they make their move to the Big twelve eventually, Boise State from the Whack to the Mountain West. I believe Nevada, you have MISSII. Colorado. Yeah, well Colorado's not good. Colorado's especially not good. But in terms of the good teams,
Maryland good this year. Offensive coordinator James Franklin at Maryland defensive coordinator Don Brown, Danie O'Brien, I think red shirt freshman quarterback was promising. Tulsa does not. I don't, I don't. I don't have Tulsa's you can just cut this out. I don't actually leave it and who cares. But Tulsa was Todd Graham and Chad Morris. UCF is good this year. Jeff Godfree quarterback. They beat Georgia in the bowl game,
the other side of the Deep South oldest rivalry. So they beat both Georgia and Auburton Bowl games in a decade span or so. We have Nebraska real ligning, we have A and M real ligning. TJ. Moe is wreaking havoc at MISSOO. They move conferences. It's it's a special year in that we had the best versions of teams or near best versions of teams. We had these strangely down versions of really strong teams. I think this was the worst year of Mark Rick's ten. You're at Georgia,
they go they end up going six and seven. Stanford was their best team, Like there was just so much upheaval.
And then you go to the National champion Ship Game, and the National Championship Game features two teams that were really I mean, Oregon was sort of near there and Auburn was sort of near there earlier on in the decade, Auburn going undefeated and being left out, Oregon finishing number two in both polls in two thousand and one and being left out, But these aren't your perennial top of college football year and year outpowers, both finding themselves in
the National Championship game. So there is just an air of novelty and freshness to college football in twenty ten. There's just a lot of tea magic. Taylor Martinez is a freshman for Nebraska, is an incredible story, an incredible watch. There is just something. Do you know what the word umami means? Ty No, Okay, you've heard the word, though as it relates to heard the word, yeah, I don't know.
Umami is sort of the vague concept of savoriness. There are there are four main flavor profiles tie in food. It's I think sweet, sour, salt, and bitter. Umami is like parmesan cheese that has sort of all of those in one or or tomato. You know, there's there's There are certain foods that are considered to have a new Mammy quality too.
So twenty ten, what you're saying was your college football umah.
One thousand percent, Tyler, one thousand percent. You missed the best part too.
The best part was that college football decided that in twenty ten they were going to outlaw the ability to write, not the ability to write, but the liberty to write some sort of message in your EyeBlack.
So yeah, of course they.
Decided they were gonna how at Tim Tebow had a thing, like there are a couple guys along the way who had a thing, and they decided they were gonna outlaw it, really cutting down to the important stuff in college football. But you're right, Auburn Oregon, there is definitely a novelty here, and both of these teams took a very different path to get there. If you look over the course of Oregon season, Oregon didn't have much trouble along the way.
Oregon had a weird game on the road mid November against Cal that they barely won, but outside of that, they were blowing the doors off teams. And we can get into why, but just a really dynamic offense that teams in the Pac twelve couldn't keep pace with. On the Auburn side of the equation, though a much different story now, still a very dynamic offense, a very good defense for sure, but they had six one score games
before they got to the National Championship game. The National Championship by the way twenty two to nineteen obviously a one score game that made it number seven on the year for the Auburn Tigers. But going into this football game, these were teams that took two very different paths. Oregon goes thirteen and ZER twelve and h there was no pack to get to No PAC twelve. Yeah, to get
to the BCS National Championship game. At the time, They're led by their quarterback Darren Thomas, who had an amazing year well Michael James, Kenyon Barner, Jeff Mayle, a name that I'm going to talk a little bit more about as we get into the actual football game. And as we saw in the National Championship pretty good defense too.
So we can start there. This was in terms of Dannalytics points per drive defense. This was twenty ten and twenty twelve were the best Oregon defenses of the modern era, I suppose until twenty nineteen. But this was a team with an amazing offense but an uncharacteristically great defense to
go along with it. Now, I suppose you can look at the PAC twelve and the offenses and the up and downness of the conference to say, well, it's okay, there were some good quarterbacks in the Pac twelve that year. This was Matt Barkley, Andrew Luck. You know, you're you're a big Brock Mansion guy. But now Nick Foles was at Arizona. There were legitimate quarterbacks who have played and succeeded in the NFL in the Packed twelve that year,
and Jake Locker. So I really do, especially with how little success the players on this defense had at the next level, I think they did a really nice job rounding out a very complete, excellent Oregon team.
You're right about saying that some of the defensive stars didn't have much luck in the NFL.
But on both sides of the ball. But yeah, on both sides of the ball. Yeah, for sure.
What was apparent though watching the championship game was that they came to play. And Kirk Kurbstreet even said her on the broadcast, by the way, this is my first time watching this broadcast as well. Oh yeah, just like last week because we were at this game, which I'll get into here momentarily, but he made mentioned the fact that, you know, we expected that defense would come to play. We figured they'd come to play early. Both offenses had
a tendency to start slowly. We did not expect to be this deep into the game, that deep into the game and have the game be nineteen to eleven or nineteen nineteen or even twenty two nineteen. Given the strength of both offenses, these defenses came to play, and Oregon I think was more surprising in that regard. We knew that Auburn was very good upfront, but what I don't think we expected is for the Oregon defense to show up quite the way it did.
No, I was pleasantly surprised that they were able to handle Cam the way that they were across the board. I know Deon Jordan was taken high, but he was not a huge factor in this game. He was taken high in the NFL draft and didn't fully work out given where he was drafted. And defensively, certainly, Cliff Harris had a number of off field incidences that incidents that curtailed his NFL possibilities, but he had an All American caliber brief career at Oregon at cornerback and played a major
role in this specific game. When I think about the twenty ten season, I think, I guess I think of you know three or four things. One the speed on offense with Mi Michael James and Kenyon Barner, especially in the backfield. They had terrific seasons with Michael James as a Heisman finalist. The fact that they had two pretty crazy games. You mentioned the Cal game that they eke out with I think only one offensive touchdown for each team.
Cal recovers a fumble in the end zone and Oregon gets a touchdown from Cliff Harris on a punt return to eke out that fifteen to thirteen win. I believe you said what the final score was. And then they've teen thirteen.
Yeah.
They fall behind twenty one to three to Stanford at home, this excellent Stanford team, Jim Harby Andrew Luck and we made a Jeopardy video out of this on our YouTube channel. They fall behind twenty one to three pretty early on and then completely ran sacks Stanford. They completely demolished them, and they rip off something like forty nine points from that point on. It was like fifty two to twenty something. So those things came to define the season for me.
They were terrific at USC I was at that game. The twenty ten game. Darren Thomas and Jeff Mail had these huge games with Michael James Kenyon Barner that came to define the season for me. And this was chip Kelly's second season much in the it was Jeane Chiswick's second season with all but chip Kelly had the advantage of being in Eugene since two thousand and seven, so this was not a sort of flash in the pan
for chip Kelly. This was sort of the culmination of a ton between Mike Blatti and chip Kelly getting to this point the Rose Bowl the year before with Jeremiah Massoli and then Darren Thomas taking over because Jeremiah Massoli has kicked off the team, taking them to the National Championship Game in his first year as the starter. It was an incredible season for Oregon for sure.
And on the Auburn side, this was a season that, let's be honest, it was dictated by Cam Newton. So Cam Newton had been at Florida, he was there two years, decided that he was going to go play elsewhere I think in two thousand and nine, and then came to Auburn for the twenty ten season.
Yeah, was that Blynn College jouco between Florida and Auburn.
Yeah, all sorts of speculations. Was there a bag man. Was there not a bagman for camp?
Who cares?
Cam Newton accounted for fifty one touchdown in twenty ten, thirty through the air, twenty on the ground, and even caught one as well. So the story of the year in many regards was the fact that this newcomer to big time college football steps in, leads this high powered offense, wins the Heisman Trophy, leads a very gritty campaign, obviously
undefeated all the way to the national championship. On that Auburn team, you had some other names that we'll get into, like Michael Dyer, he was a true freshman at the time, rushed for over one thousand yards. Ontario mckaleb, one of the great names of the time, another guy who had a very huge impact on the success of that Auburn team. What I find interesting watching back, and this is no knock on Cam Newton. Cam Newton's gone on to amazing things.
I find myself somewhat underwhelmed by Cam Newton as a passer. He was such a bull as a runner, and the numbers speak for themselves. The guy ran for over fourteen hundred yards. But what he could do on the ground trying to bring this behemoth down really open things up in the passing game in a way that you know, maybe somebody with similar arm talent wouldn't see the benefit of just because they didn't have the legs of Cam, you know what I mean.
Totally one hundred percent correct. I will add this, this Auburn team was not fully realized early and a lot of that has to do with the fact that Cam Newton almost stands alone as not just a one year wonder. He was only there for a year. So we've seen quarterbacks come into situations and players come into situations for a year and shine. Russell Wilson at Wisconsin. Russell Wilson
was a Power five starter before then. Russell Wilson, I mean, I think NC State was ranked at the end of twenty ten, and so in twenty eleven when he goes to Wisconsin. There are those one year wonders. But Cam Newton didn't start at Florida and goes to Auburn for a season. We've seen it with some JUCO guys. I think Chad Johnson was at Oregon State for like a month and a half. He was there for the season and gone, So we've seen sort of that but on
the level and the success that he had. I suppose, if you're talking strictly on this level, Vernon Adams kind of did that playing at the FCS level before succeeding at Oregon for just a year and then moving on. But cam Newton really stands alone. Mitch Trubisky sort of did that. You know he's there, it's a red shirt sophomore at North Carolina. But Cam Newton what he was
able to do, So it's understandable that against Clemson. Say they go to overtime at home Mississippi State, they sneak by in Starkville early on, they sneak by on the road against Kentucky into October. But then starting with I guess they get by LSU with that amazing seventy some odd yard run from cam Newton, they turn a corner. They beat Georgia by nearly twenty points. Again not a great Georgia team, but that comeback against Alabama, I think
I don't know if gritty is the word. I know you used that, but there was something twinkly, there was something charmed about this Auburn season. Twenty four point comeback against Alabama, amazing twenty four point comeback. They needed to come back against South Carolina, a good South Carolina team in the fourth quarter. I think they were down going into the fourth earlier on in the season, and then they just obliterate them. In the SEC championship game, Darvin
Adams has a huge game. You mentioned some of the running backs, but Darvin Adams and Emery Blake were at least solid on the outside. And then Philip Lutson Kirkhin was an underclassman. I want to say he was a sophomore that year. Obviously in an incredibly tragic situation with
his far too early passing. But this was a talented offense led by once in a lifetime quarterback talent and a pretty average defense, a pretty average defense that didn't need to be more than average obviously for Auburn to succeed.
Very good upfront, and we'll get into that specifically when we talk about this game. But the other element of this for us is where we were at the start of the twenty eleven calendar year. Correct, This was I believe our first national championship slash media day experience.
Correct.
Also correct, I don't know about you. I was completely starstruck. I was starstruck. I Levasier t A. I was starstruck, not just by the players, but like seeing Stu Mandel up close and personal. It's like, this is somebody who I have talked to, I have interviewed. Now to meet these people. I'm sure Stu here is this all the time. He's a megastar. But you know, this for me was a big deal. It was my second time in a
press box. I had no idea what to do. You looked at me like I had two heads a couple of times like what you what are you doing right now? I had no idea what I was supposed to do. The whole experience was overwhelming for me. This was was this when we saw Mike Tarico wearing the dad jeans? Maybe yeah, this is why we saw Tarico and the dad jeans. What did you expect Mike Turrico to be wearing?
Well?
I did, I just I didn't expect the dad jeans to be so dad. Extra dad jeans is how I would classify them.
What is a dad jean? By the way, just a lot of room in the seat. Is that what you're hearing? Yes?
Maybe, just maybe maybe you wear it a little higher than you're supposed to.
Chris Fowler very cool, very cool.
Especially on media Day with his lot going on, people buzzing about trying to get interviews. Chris Fower would casually walk in, had a Manila envelope with all sorts of stats and whatnot in it, had a rosters, had had a coffee in his hand, just sort of saunters up to someone who's maybe not got anyone at their booth and just chit chats him up.
Chris Fowler looking like he runs an especially successful juice bares Denver. Yes. Yeah.
I also remember from media Day looking at Cam Newton as he walked by, thinking maybe he had shoulder pads on, but then saying there's definitely no and for him to wear shoulder pads to media.
Day, superhero would I would go as far as saying he looks like a superhero.
Yes.
So we were there thanks to press passes. We got through a Canadian media outfit still in existence called the Score, and we got there on their dime by pitching them a video idea. We were going to go and we were going to document the national Championship. The caveat was that we didn't really have a plan for that video. We had no idea what it was going to be. We just said it was going to be loosely about the National Championship, but we didn't we didn't really know
what we were going to do. So you brought along our friend West Coast Kevin to serve as the cameraman and producer, and that was where we ended up coming up with our idea in our cheap little hotel room across from a strip club called the Dream Palace. This idea to do something of a Renaldi spoof video. It was going to be kind of a rags to riches type of thing where we talk about how improbable it was for us to make it to the National Championship, and yet.
Here we are there.
This is all the adversity we fought through to get here. We ended up making that video, putting it on YouTube. The Score loved it, ESPN loved it. They put it on ESPN News and they got Tom Ornaldy to call in and comment on the video as they were watching it on ESPN News, which was a big moment for us.
I'm not gonna lie, would you say, would you go as far as saying in the end, maybe the Dream Palace was where we were all along.
There.
It is there.
It is the other thing that I must point out about this two things. First off, you've heard, if you've listened to this show for any number of years now, about this encounter I had with Bill Hancock.
Head of the then head of the BCS.
Then executive director of the BCS, now executive director of the College Football National Championship Playoff Series, whatever it's called,
Bill Hank. I don't remember how exactly we crossed paths, but at the time we were at this resort in Arizona where they were having all the media events, and there was a hospitality suite near enough to where all this other stuff was taking place, where the work rooms, and so I had made my way over there just to grab food and drink whatever snacks tostitos a plenty, you know. And I sit down for a second, and doesn't Bill Hancock walk over to me and just chat me up? Hi, how are you on?
Bill Hancock? I talked to him about.
The notion of a podcast, which blew his mind, and before I knew it, I found myself in about a half hour, forty five minute discussion with Bill Hancock over a gigantic the biggest bowl of Tostito's I'd ever seen salsa a plenty drinking I think Coke at the time, talking about life, media life, A very nice guy and in that moment I like to think we bonded.
Wow, what an unpaid commercial for a human. And also, this was the night of the really hard binge drinking, was it? That was the same thing. We went hard. Yeah, we were going. You were going with Kevin and a couple of media members, drink for drink and at the end of it, Kevin threw up and you just edited audio ten beers in. Yeah, a good way to sum up our show. Yeah, so that was all before the game. That's the backdrop. That's the backdrop. We were excited to
be there. We were in the press box, we were down the field. We had a front row seat to everything that transpired in this game. Did you.
Watch this game? Did you watch the broadcast of this game after you got back? How long did it take before you could watch it?
Well, so I technically, and maybe we technically watched the broadcast as it was happening because we were in the
press box and had a terrible angle. I think we had press box access, but we didn't have press box seats something like that, so we ended up the two of us, and I want to say, Michael Wilbon sat down, sat down in a seated area that was like an eighty inch three D TV, and so we watched this game in three D for a stretch with Wilbon in the press box, and that's how we took in the majority of the game, at least until we went down
to the field to watch the final few minutes. So we technically did watch the broadcast, but we're not keenly paying attention to those elements.
I sat next to one of the Fiesta Bowl executives because they had the orange jackets on. Yeah, And that was before a bunch of them gotten dited.
For Did he offer you to take you to this dream palace? No?
No, that was that was before those guys got into any kind of okay, legal trouble.
But we were there for the game. It was exciting.
The first thing that jumps out to me upon watching this broadcast is gene Chiswick was really bundled up for this game, wasn't.
He in a dome?
Yeah, in a dome in the middle of the desert in Arizona. I'm not going to say it was the warmest day in early January, but there's a reason a lot of folks from the Northeast migrate down to the Southwest, and it's because it's usually pretty warm. Gene Chiswick was wearing an under armor turtleneck and what looked close enough to.
Being a winter coat inside a dad Yeah it was a big coaches jacket thing.
Yeah for sure, no sideburns in true gene Chisick fashion. I also noticed that Chip Kelly was his usual abrupt self when being asked questions from Aaron Andrews, to the point where Aeron Andrews just like, okay, Chip, okay, thanks, have a good game, Like she knew that was coming, but she had asked the questions anyway.
Chip was his normal abrupt self. My takeaways from the introduction of this game one, we have a Bob if you remember Bob the Rapper and future flat Earther. As part of the pregame festivities music wise, Joey Harrington and Jason Campbell are signing boxes of Taco Bell Big Boxes at Tailgates. They have introductions for both Auburn and Oregon. The Auburn one is as you would expect, talking about Tumor's corner and how football's are religion in the South.
For Oregon, they got the guy known to sell joke books near the school, a guy named by the name of Frog who's been there forever. So they had him and the Oregon portion of it, which was a choice. I suppose Nick Saban and urban Meyer in the pregame. Nick Saban's really good. He's really good on camera, as urban Meyer I thought was alsome. And by the way, I think urban Meyer retired at the end of the twenty ten season. That was another thing that we missed
urban Meyer. Yes, if that timing, I think that timing works ye. And also just happening because it happened in the state a few days before, three days before something like that was the horrific Gabby Giffords and other people shooting in Tucson. Oh jeez, outside of a grocery store. This horribly tragic thing perpetrated by a lunatic happens just in that same state. So that all is the backdrop.
We have a switch foot intro as well. We are one tonight in that time, we are one tonight outside of this I should add because we talked about it in the previous episode. We have number one in the country, Firework, Katie Perry, Grenade, Bruno Mars, We are letter are who we letter are? Kesha? Kesha?
Yeah?
What's my name? Rihanna? Raise your glass? Pink Tonight, Enrique Glessias, the Time, Black Eyed Peas Black and Yellow is Khalifa? Just the way you are, Bruno Mars, just a dream, Nelly an incredible top ten and the top ten movies of the week. Less than that, it was True Grit, Little Fokker's season of the Witch Colon Legacy season that was one of the worst Nick Cage movies, really bad. The Fighter, Country, Strong, King Speech which quality, Yogi Bear
and Tangled round out the top ten. The Fighter I think was, wasn't it? Fighter was? I think that was? Yeah? Was that? Christian Baiale Wahlberg? I think so okay? I was all right, No. I enjoyed that. The mom was really good in that. So that all places us in early January of twenty eleven, two undefeated teams with TCU being left out, and they were excellent going to the rose Ball, and I was very excited for this game. And it was awesome.
The atmosphere we were down on the field before the game, it was striving. Remember they let Challenger the Eagle go in the dome and he just like, rather than just dive bomb, he just did a slow circle around and people were going. He must have flown around the stadium two or three times and people were losing their freaking minds that a bald eagle was flying over them. Then eventually it went down to midfield and that was that. But the crowd was nuts, and the first quarter, for
its part, was equally as crazy. Second play of the game, it's very apparent that Darren Thomas maybe has a little bit of a nerve thing going on as he overthinks an option pitch.
A little too late with it. It had disaster written all over it.
Thankfully, for his sake, it didn't amount to anything, but right out of the shoot it's looking like, okay, Darren Thomas, he's got some nerves.
That he needs to work through here. In the early going, tried to pitch it over a receiver blocking like a linebacker or a defensive back. It was maybe the worst option pitch attempt we've seen during the duration of the Solimar. It was really bad. The flow of the game itself was Oregon comes out and tries to run a lot of optiony looks. They have two running backs in the backfield, and they used the receiver as sort of an h back.
Their best blocking receiver Drew Davis, so they looked different than what they were showing on film all season long, and they eventually abandoned that strategy. They're trying to option Nick Fairley at times, which is a bad idea. They tried to leave Nick Fairley unblocked, the clear best player probably in this game. Really, right, Nick Fairley, We're gonna get the dominant player in this game. We'll get to
Nick Fairly. First quarter was relatively uneventful in terms of offense. Yes, Darren Thomas skittish, the Oregon offense skittish, but they're able to when backed up against the wall. Throughout this game really generate big plays, but never really the way Auburn was able to more methodically move the ball. Auburn was a little bit more efficient in terms of balance in terms of bigger plays. In terms of finding matchups. Poor
Kenny Rowe for Oregon. There, their undersized ed rusher found himself in coverage a couple too many times, and Auburn was able to exploit that. But I Oregon's offense being worse than it actually was. The Oregon offense was fine.
They just either came up huge when backed up against the wall or slowed down in the worst possible times to slow down, whereas Auburn would move the ball and they would either turn the ball over or shoot themselves in the foot or overthrow somebody that was relatively open. So there was not a lot of rhythm early on in this game, but there were a fair amount of turnovers.
As I fast forward to the second Oregon drive where Darren Thomas throws a high ball to Kenyon Barnert to flex off his hands, goes for an interception, they turned the ball over to Auburn. Cam Newton gets the ball throws it to Cliff Harris. He's noted as being a risk taker by the conlitaryah in this football game. Then Oregon gets the ball back. Darren Thomas proceeds to throw a pick on the ensuing drive after being hurried by Nick Fairley. So you stole a little bit of my thunder.
But I did want to get into talking about Nick Fairley because him changing the rhythm of the game. The rhythm of that Oregon offense became a recurring theme. And so I guess my question to you is, and I think we already know the answer, who are the three best players on the field in this game? Not throughout the course of the year, not in the NFL, nothing like that, but on the field on January the tenth, twenty eleven. Who are the three best players that you saw on the field.
Two of them are Auburn players. I think it's Cam Newton and Nick Fairley. And the third is probably Casey Matthews for Oregon, the middle linebacker who is really good in run, stuffs and forces later on in the game a huge fumble for Oregon that the Ducks recover. So yeah, he was the heartbeat of a great defensive performance for Oregon. But ultimately it's Nick Fairley, ya just wreaking complete havoc and demanding a ton of attention from a decidedly college
offensive line, collegiate offensive line from Oregon. And then Cam Newton extends drives with his legs and even though he wasn't amazing in this game, hit a couple of incredible passes that changed the I mean that won the game for Auburn essentially. So yeah, those are those are to me, those are the clear dudes. Jeff Mail has a huge catch. There are moments, you know, Emory Blake, Darvin Adams, but and certainly Michael Dyer late, but the game changers were those three.
To me.
Nick Fairley was a monster in this game. There was no answer for him, especially in the second half when Oregon's line started to hire out. It was apparent that in the interior part of that defensive line, Auburn was just so much better. Truly, it was the catalyst. It was the catalyst that pushed Auburn over the top here fairly for sure. Hurried that early interception that we talked about before in the first quarter blew up as his own read later in the first quarter when Oregon was
down in the red zone. So this is a guy who continuously changed the point of attack, changed the game, and changed the rhythm of that Oregon offense. And you're right, like Jeff Mail and Michae Dyer, they had moments.
They're very good in this game.
Cam Newton was just so good all year and had such a skill set that just by.
Being on the field. He was a game changer.
You know, you couldn't avoid him. There was no way that you could avoid him. You couldn't game plan around him. He had to be the centerpiece of everything. And so even if he wasn't running for more than I think he had sixty four yards on the ground, even if he was air mailing a couple wide open passes and maybe making me feel a bit underwhelmed watching him back as a passer, he just brought so much to the equation that there was no possible way you could ever game plan.
Yeah, Oregon did a good enough job that they were able to tackle him in the open field more often than not. They kept a spy on him and Kenny Row. The problem, as I mentioned earlier, is they were able to force a mismatch with him and at one time a receiver with an edge rush, which is not anything you want an undersized edgrusher at that. But he did a nice job spying on Cam Newton and they didn't
have to bring a ton of pressure. They were able to get to him, able to confuse him a little bit in the past game because he wasn't making a lot of you know, going across the field horizontally progressions. It was sort of play action and this guy should be open, and sometimes that guy was, sometimes he Wasn't you neglected to mention one thing which I know you love, which is a terrible attempt at a kickoff return trick
play Oh no, the end around, right. Oregon went for a couple times end a rounds and the first time they try and end around and it ends up with Kenyon Barner I believe, being tackled something like twelve yards behind where he took the hand off. And you know, Oregon started so deep into their own territory on so many drives that being one of the worst.
And Herbie mentioned it later in the broadcast that Oregon just they can't get too cute here. They're very good, they're very dynamic, but they got to watch it. They don't get a little too cute, and that, to your point, was a little too cute. I think the overwhelming theme of this game was first off, defense. First, the defenses were outstanding in this football game the whole way through. And that's true for both teams, maybe a little more so for Auburn in the way that they changed the
game at the point of attack. But two very good defensive showings in this football game. But the theme I think throughout was Auburn was a little stronger with its offensive line and a little stronger with its defensive line, and over the course of sixty minutes, that gradual fatigue that set in on the Oregon side led to Auburn taking a little bit more of an advantage. And it was a close game. It was won on a last
second field goal. You know, I mean this was truly it was there for Oregon had they gotten a few breaks. I just felt watching back that it was apparent Oregon just got a little tired. They couldn't quite compete in the trenches. That's ultimately what gave Auburn just a little just a sliver of an advantage that they could capitalize on.
The thing that and maybe this is more big picture that surprised me watching this game again, is it felt like a twenty eight to seventeen Auburn win that came down to the last drive in last second. Auburn was able to generate a lot more opportunities. Now they missed on some of them. I think Cam Newton threw a pick to Cliff Harris that was reviewed and ruled not a pick. But that's probably much more heart than head on my part. I don't know when you rewatch that,
what were your thoughts. Throw He overthrows a ball, Cliff Harris jumps in front of it, and as he's sort of careening out of bounds, gets a foot down, switches hands, gets an arm down, I believe, as he's careening out of bounds, and then as he lands already out of bounds having a foot and an arm down, loses control of the ball. Yeah, I mean allow. The NFL rule is holding it onto it through the the contact with the ground. It seemed to me like that was an interception.
And then cam throws a touchdown pass on the ensuing play when it's ruled not an interception.
Right right, No, I mean it's Look, the rules have changed. Ask anyone who's watched football for a long time and they'll tell you how infuriating it is not just what counts as a reception, but what counts as a fumble. Right, So the rules have changed drastically over the course of time in football. And one of those breaks though that I was talking about, one of those breaks where where Auburn was able to capitalize This was a defensive game though the whole way through. Here is your second half
drive chart. I know you like to do this. I don't have the musical drive chart. No, it's okay, go for it.
Field goal, punt, punt, turnover on downs, punt, punt, punt, punt, fumble, touchdown, field goal, end of game. Not electric ty, but somehow the end of the game was exciting.
The end of the game was very exciting. So there were moments in the second half that I think were extremely notable. Maybe not the pyrotechnic display of offense that you might expect, but there was a crazy goal line stand late in the third quarter, maybe the key play in.
The whole game.
Oregon driving seems like it's a great opportunity for them when Michael James gets stood up at the goal line turnover on downs at that point. From that point forward, it seemed like Auburn Jean Chiswick, gusmus On like they just decided we're gonna turn this over to Cam, We're
gonna let Cam take over. Starting now. On the ensuing drive, it started to become a little bit more apparent, and that combo of Cam on the ground of dire on the ground of what it did in the passing game to open things up, and just I think the Auburn offensive line wearing down Oregon ever so slightly in the trenches. That confluence of events led championship cocktail tie. That championship cocktail just was enough to push Auburn over the top.
I think I misremembered Darren Thomas being better in this game. He had a rough game, He had a rough time with the Auburn defense, and I don't even think it was just the pressure that he was under. And you mentioned I Ultimately, yes, the Auburn winning in the trenches won them this game. Darren Thomas looked uncomfortable, not just early but just misguys, and when they went to more of a hurry up later in the game, he got
into more of a rhythm. But the majority of his yardage came on two, three four plays, and so his final line looks better than he actually looked, comfort wise, control wise, poise wise, And so that's why I felt
that it rewatching. It had the rhythm of a twenty eight to seventeen Auburn win, but it was Auburn just screwing up key moments third downs, Red zone trips whatever that kept Oregon in this game and the Oregon defense like you've mentioned, But yeah, I do think you're right on that that Oregon has a terrible call that ends into safety where they line up under center. They go
they just abandon their offense. They lay line up under center from the half yard line, their own half yard line and try to run some sort of power withle Michael James. Just it goes terribly, It goes really poorly. So my big takeaway later on in this game when you talk about the lack of offense in the second half, in Oregon put it together late and they had that great two point conversion to Jeff Mail with Darren Thomas throwing against his body, and it was it was those moments.
It was you mentioned that the stops in the reds one Oregon would I think it was a Darren Thomas really cool juggled catch from Lavasier tuoen A. He runs it down and Auburn saves a touchdown and then they stand Oregon up at the goal line. It was Auburn's defense coming up in those moments and Auburn's offense surviving some screw ups for three plus quarters in big moments on offense and Cam Newton and then ultimately Michael Dyer, who not just on the play where I mean Comedy
was down. He was not down. He was down, but he was down a second time running it into the end zone lates and they ruled him down at the one or two yard half yard line before they kicked back to half yard line. There it is. Yeah, I watched that play back and back and back in HD, and I know people have written scientific articles talking to experts that indeed Michael Dyer was not down on that play. My guy was down. Guy was down, ty all right, I think I saw that risk down, Tye. I still do.
All right, Well, I want to let's talk about the sequence that led up to that moment. So, okay, just to reframe things here, we've already mentioned how little happened on offense in the second half of this football game. But that being said, the last five minutes or so, we're pretty crazy. It is nineteen to eleven at that moment in time, Oregon punts the football way, there's about five minutes left. So you're watching this team terrible drive
after a terrible drive. You're watching this game. You're thinking Auburn can put this game on ice. All they have to do is what they're really good at. Keep it on the ground, put it in the hands of Cam Newton, like just be super conservative, run the clock. Even if you run it down to like two minutes. You can't lose. You just can't lose the football game. Sure enough, Oregon
punts it away. Three plays into that Auburn drive, Casey Matthews comes up from behind a quarterback rush, punches the ball out of Cam Newton's hands, It flies up, Cliff Harris jumps on it at the Auburn forty yard line. WHOA what a moment late in this football game?
Did we run down at that moment?
Well, what was funny about it is, for as sure footed as you were in a press box, compared to me, you were like a deer in headlights trying to figure out the precise moment that we should go downstairs. And I remember you kept asking me, should we go down now? Should we go down now?
What should we do?
What should You were unlike any other time I'd ever seen you completely in that deer in headlights bode And so eventually I made the call, I sall right, let's go down. Let's go down, and I think we made it down in time for the Oregon touchdown, and then of course the game winning Auburn field goal, which we'll get to here momentarily.
But.
An incredible moment that Casey Matthews would punch the ball out of the Heisman Trophy winning quarterback. Oregon gets the football back. Now they've got all three of their timeouts, four fifty four left on the clock. Darren Thomas connects up with DJ Davis a long pass that takes him down to the eleven yard line, and then it takes Oregon a couple tries. It was emotionally fraught there for I don't know, a good minute and a half of gameplay as Oregon's trying to figure out how they going
to get in here now. They had been in a similar situation earlier in the game. We talked about that goal line stand at the end of the first quarter. They again were trying to rely on that rushing attack. It took them a couple tries to get in eventually. Shovel pass, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think it was a shovel pass. I don't remember if it was. Yeah, I think it was till Michael James.
Yeah, so a.
Little scamper in from Michael James. That brings us to the situation of nineteen seventeen. Oregon's obviously got to go for two. There's only about two and a half minutes left. That is when Darren Thomas delivers that really nice ball across his body to Jeff Mail on the back of the end zone to tie it at nineteen Mail time. You at this point are virtually speechless. I look over at you. We're down on the field. Dan is speechless, forget trying to talk to him.
Hyperventilating, gay, hyperventilating everything, hyper ventilation, Yeah.
Everything you might expect. Problem was they left too much time. They left too much time for Cam Newton. First play, fifteen yard passed to Emery Blake, gets down to the Auburn forty yard line. Next play, the Michael Dyer thirty seven yard rush he was not down, makes it all the way down to the Oregon twenty three. A couple other short rushes followed by a long one, the one that you referenced earlier, Michael Dyer sixteen yards to the
half yard line. They had to take that to replay to make sure that he didn't get in, and he didn't, and then a couple plays here and there to run clock before they turn it over to Wes Bynham, who was as reliable a kicker as you were going to find in all of kin byrom Yeah, nineteen yards feel go good, twenty two to nineteen year final score.
Yeah, it's a It was a really brutal weight hand just because it took so long, just because the Michael Dyer run spelled. I don't know what yard line he ran it down to, but it was just like, Okay, Oregon's going to lose this game short of a horrific snap on the field goal attempt. He was That was all I could have played prayed for at that moment.
He ran it from the Auburn forty, so they're on their own side of the fifty yard line all the way down to the Oregon twenty three.
At that point, it's a forty yard field goal, which is not automatic but certainly reasonable. And then the long, dire run to the goal line, it's like, Okay, it's praying for a kicker tripping or a terrible snap, and both of which are pretty unlikely from that short Yeah.
So now that we've sort of gone through all this, Dan, Yeah, being so you were there, You've lived it. I know you've rewatched it. What is your what is your impression on the rewatch? What are things that you felt, maybe for the first time after watching this game like ten years later, I was.
As impressed with Oregon's defense as an Oregon fan. I mentioned the Darren Thomas thing where I watching it there, I was not in the mindset of really analyzing it. Was just so skittish. She was so all over the place, and offensively, I thought it was actually a pretty sound game plan to get trying to get into the perimeter
with the option game. But if Michael James and Kenyon Barner, who had been the heartbeat of that offense and as good as guys like Drew Davis and Jeff Mail were, they didn't have I think Josh huff was on this team as well, they didn't have a game change or a receiver. So if those two guys at running back are not difference makers, it's almost impossible to win MI. Michael James pace that Stanford comeback, Cliff Harris on defense paced that the uh the col win with his punt return.
If their fastest dudes are not changing the game that for that specific team, it was going to be very hard for them to win, and ultimately it wasn't going to be that hard. They needed just a stop at the end of the game to try to get the ball back. But with with you know, Vernon Adams probably wins that game for Oregon. Marcus Mariota wins that game
for Oregon. An offensive line that either came before that line or after that line, with you know, more NFL caliber talent, stands a better shot of winning that game for Oregon. I thought what Cam Newton was able to do, and I mentioned the mismatches was amazing. Auburn was the better team. Regardless of Michael Dyer being down or not. Auburn was the better team. They earned that National Championship game. I just thought came away thinking it was wild that
Oregon was in that game. So ah. Overall, I am grateful that Cam Newton didn't do to Oregon what he had done two other teams because just an incredible player. And while that the epilogue of everything was that much like Cam's career, that was a flash for Gene Chiswick. Jean Chiswicks are success was owed to Cam Newton, and he gets fired two years later. Chip Kelly only ascends
from that point. The twenty eleven and twenty twelve teams that he coaches for Oregon are better than this National Championship contending team, although they don't get to a National Championship game. And it was just a right place, right time situation for Oregon and for Auburn, and so big picture it's Nick Fairley and Cam Newton and their gang of pals.
I think that's fair I mentioned earlier that I felt a little bit underwhelmed by Cam Newton as a passer. Obviously, Cam Newton is once in a generation player, certainly on the college level and to some extent on the NFL level as well.
NFL MVP took a team to a super Bowl. I don't know a lot about the NFL, but he was good. He is very good, very good player.
And Cam Newton was absolutely the engine that made this Auburn season go. He was absolutely the star, the superstar of this football team. But in this game, I felt underwhelmed on the rewatch with what he did as a passer. Maybe some nerves by him. I was really impressed again with Nick Fairley.
I knew at the time.
I remembered from us previewing the game that we saw Nick Fairley as a bit of an issue for that Oregon line to try and a count for him, the game plan for him. And we were right. Everybody was right. This wasn't a secret. He was just so good. There was nothing that anybody could do. You could triple team and it didn't matter. Nick Fairley really changed the game just by being out there. The other thing that really stuck out to me on the rewatch was just how
little Oregon was able to do on the ground. And I forget what the what the stats are Officially it was something like seventy five yards something like that, but it was clearly an issue that Oregon could not get that facet of their game going. It had an outsized impact on the rest of the offense, the rhythm that I think Chip Kelly wanted to establish. Without having that to fall back on which they had relied upon all year, it really did change.
The complexion of this football game.
So that stood out to me in a way that I guess I didn't notice at the time. And the only other thing that I'll point out here, and this is probably because I haven't watched the broadcast until I don't know, a couple of days ago. M h, I miss Brent Musburger.
Yeah, I was gonna bring that up right now the broadcast itself. So we talked about he's great.
Yeah, we talked about on our last show some of the beef I have with Tom Hammond. Tom Hammond has called a lot of important events, all right. I don't actually dislike the guy. It just not my cup of tea when it comes to an announcer. But the difference, the stark contrast between Brent Musburger and someone like Tom Hammond was on full display here. Tom Hammond shot out
of a cannon for that usc Notre Dame game. Not that excitability is a negative in the booth, it's not, but he was just keyed up from the opening kick all the way through the final gun. Brent Mussburger has more of a calm and cool and collected nature about him. He didn't get excitable. He knew how to let the game speak for itself. He knew when to use silence as his ally, and he knew how to hand it off to Kirk kurb Street in a way that I
thought made Herbi a better announcer as well. He did use the big Fellow Moniker a little too much, almost to the point where I think Herb Street started saying it too just by proximity. But Brent Mussburger one of the all time greats. I miss him in the booth. It was great to hear his voice again.
Very big on the because this is the twenty ten season, so this is not as pass happy a college football as we have now. This is, you know, pre Lincoln Riley at Oklahoma. This is pre you know, the Clemson in the Alabama Renaissance. And it's before Oregon becomes a really good passing team. It's before the air raid really takes hold. This is pre Dana Holgerson becoming a household name. And so when Auburn and Oregon we're throwing these quick
little screens out wide. Brent Musburger was very big on folks. This is a de facto run play, folks. They're just getting the ball real quick out there. It's a run play type play. That was something I noticed that stood out a few times to me. It was more modern than I anticipated, and the two thousand and five Bush push game felt older. Than I anticipated, So I was I was pleasantly surprised by that. I suppose it's five years after that game, the Bush push to the twenty
ten to twenty eleven game. So I thought it was a good broadcast, that there was nothing it was. The big thing that stood out to me were the number of replay angles as compared to the first game we did, the two thousand and five USC Notre Dame game. That there were certainly elements. The fact that it was an HD was very good. To watch this game in ten ADP made a big difference watching it back. I don't have that many other notes on the broadcast itself. I don't know if you do.
Definitely came away feeling that this was way more modern than what we had seen just a few years earlier in two thousand and five. The broadcast just felt like it was a much more modern product, pretty close to what we have now.
So after this game, Darren Thomas returns to play quarterback. Lemichael James, Kenyon Barner are joined by d Anthony Thomas. Oregon wins the Rose Bowl, they beat Wisconsin, they win the Fiesta Bowl. We watched that game, I think with our friend Bruce Feldman at some sort of sports bar that's over Kansas State, and twenty twelve, Chip Kelly ends up leaving. Then we have Mark Helfrich and so forth and so forth. They get back to the National Championship
game in twenty fourteen. The year before that, Auburn's in the National Championship Game with Nick Marshall. So that must have been a great progression, right, nah Ah, They took a different route to get back Jean Chizz. It gets fired. I think it's it's Barrett Trotter getting the majority of the snaps of quarterback, which doesn't go particularly well. It's
Barrett Trotter and Clint Moseley for Auburn. Kil Fraser gets in there as a touted freshman in twenty eleven, and in twenty twelve, kil Fraser takes over and is not the answer. I'm gonna be kind. My twenty twenty goal is to be a little bit kinder to student athletes. He was not the answer at quarterback in twenty twelve. Gus Malson comes in in twenty thirteen with Nick Marshall, and things change. The Auburn offense improves greatly. They run
the ball really well, that's a Trey Mason team. He's had obviously a weird go of it since his career at Auburn, but he's a terrific patient runner. And that twenty thirteen even that twenty thirteen SEC championship game, that's Auburn Miszoo with that great missoo front. That was That was a really fun game too. That was a fun season,
the twenty thirteen SEC season. So Auburn rehires Gus Malzan after he moves to Arkansas State and gets annihilated by Oregon, So that at least felt a little good for me, even though he was coaching Arkansas State, and Auburn moves
on to having nothing but amazing and uneven season. Since then, Oregon has plenty of up and downs, ups and downs themselves, and seems to have found a coach that is working out for them in Mario Cristobal eventually, but that's after some upheaval with Willie Taggart and the end of the Mark helferg Era.
So to put a cherry on top, much the way we did last week when we talked about Notre Dame USC, with some first hand perspective, we have arranged a similar setup for this episode.
Have we not?
We have We want stakeholders. We want people who were there, and we were there in the way that you obviously were there for the Bush Push game in two thousand and five. But we are going to be joined momentarily. I think I'll do it solo, Tie, because this is just too deeply nerdy Oregon. I'm going to speak with Jeff Palmer, who was the short snapper for the Oregon
Ducks in this game. So he was snapping field goals and extra points for the Ducks and they had a lot of extra points in twenty ten, just to sort of walk me through what it was like to be not just a contributor but a fly on the wall during the Oregon season. He was not the offensive coordinator, he was not leading the defense, he was not on the field for a majority of plays like a lot of players were. But damn it, long and short snappers are people as well, Tie, So I'm excited to sort
of go behind the scenes with Jeff Palmer. Let's roll it all right. Tide dropped out because this is a special safe space and comfort zone for sad Oregon brains that remember this, and somebody who is probably I shouldn't say probably. There is a chance he is sadder about this game because he actually played in it and was on the team during arguably the golden era of Oregon
football from two thousand and nine through twenty twelve. He started in two thousand and eight, but the Chip Kelly era and the Jeff Palmer short snapper extraordinaire for the Oregon Ducks overlap perfectly. So, Jeff, thanks for joining the show.
Thanks for having me. I'm excited.
All right, let's start here. The season was terrific, was you know, from the outside, it looks fun, it looks excellent. You're blowing teams out, you're surviving a couple of close calls, a big comeback against Stanford, and ugly that these are my words, win at Cal in a low scoring game with only one offensive touchdown for each team. Do you remember this season fondly?
Absolutely?
I always hear you guys say, you know, a team has to win their clunkers, and I think we. I think we put up forty points on every single team except that Cow game, if I remember ly, and so you know, I forgot about that comeback against Stanford, but just looking at scores, we didn't have a ton of close calls. I still, looking back, don't know if it was our best team out of my five years there, but it was definitely the closest team with the best leadership,
I'd say. And yeah, we really ran through a lot of a lot of the schedule pretty easily.
Only thirty seven points at Oregon State War Game. The disappointing the Civil War was only thirty seven led by Michael James on the ground. But what does that mean? What is when you say that it's not necessarily the best team, but in terms of leadership, I suppose in terms of locker room vibes and just a feeling you had. What is different about a team able to survive their clunkers? That say, different from losing narrowly to Stanford in twenty twelve, losing to I think it was USC and LSU in
twenty eleven. What's different about leadership and survival?
I think a lot has to be attributed to Chip Kelly coming in and changing the focus to a lot more attention to detail, and the guys that really bought in that were left over from the Vallati years were you know, we're the upperclassmen at that point, the Jordan Holmes, the David Paulson's, the Eddie Pleasant, all the older guys.
Those were all the.
Best leaders on that team, and I think the entire team was so in especially you know, post Civil War going into that National championship game. I think it was a time for us to all really bond and become that much closer as a team. It was just incredible leadership is what I'll always remember about that team.
There's no Pac twelve, so there's no Pack twelve championship game. So this is a long layoff between I think it's the Civil Wars December fourth, The Auburn game is January tenth, so this is over a month. How does that space out? I assume at some point you go home for the holidays. Maybe I'm wrong, but what is preparation like for a program that has never ever been in this spot now going to a national championship game?
Yeah, we almost had almost like a year of prep before going to the Rose Bowl and having close to a similar layoffs, but I think it was I think it was like thirty five days if I remember correctly, something like that. And being on the quarter system, you know, you get out relatively early for Christmas, and so the only people in Eugene, And that kind of goes back to why I think the team bonded so well is we're pretty much the only people in that little college town.
And so we practiced, I want to say, for like two weeks. A lot of it was just you know, helmets and shorts or whatever. And then we got to go home for six or seven days celebrate Christmas with the family. And then if I remember correctly, we reported directly to Scottsdale and all met there, you know, over the course of two days, and then started six or seven days of bull prep practices in Arizona.
So yeah, it was it was a really long layoff.
Do you remember things being different in terms of, you know, you're not necessarily an offensive or defensive meetings, But is there a different field to preparation for a game like this? The the Oregon offense comes out with some different looks, The Oregon defense is preparing for a singular dual threat quarterback talent that maybe we haven't seen since or before in cam Newton. Is there do you feel a heightened sense of focus? Is there? Is it learning something all new?
What do you remember about the team sort of preparing in Arizona, basically after not playing in a game for as you said, about a month.
Yeah, I think it was a pretty tricky balance of like trying to stay relaxed over that whole ten day period when we were there, but also putting in the work. And obviously there's no one on the scout team that's gonna simulate Cam as big as Cam and as.
Versatile as he was, so yeah, it was.
It was pretty interesting because being a specialist, I'm able to watch during practice and get a sense of the team in that sense, but I'm not sitting in on all the meetings and seeing how focused everyone really is. We met with the tight Ends because coach Osborne was the tight End's coach, so we would, you know, we'd see how locked in David Paulson and those guys were. But that's really the only real sense we had. And just comparing to the Rose Bowl the year before, how many guys were.
In the video game room where they have kingpong tables and pool tables.
There was just less guys in there fooling around throughout the day, and what I would assume is more intense film study and meetings and everything of that nature. So I think just the level of overall focus that year compared to especially the year before, was just that much more intense.
So the game happens and the Oregon defense is I would say, pretty exceptional all things considered with what the Ducks are facing and Cam Newton and the season that Auburn had offensively, and the Oregon offense really struggles to get into a rhythm. The offense generates some big plays, comes up huge near the end of the game, generating
a touchdown drive. Did that surprise you based on both the season and by what you saw in practice that it was the Oregon defense leading the way of underrated part of the team and the offense, which had been this explosive unit really struggling with a i'd say somewhat average Auburn defense. Was that surprising to the way the game played out?
It was?
It was especially like I said earlier, us putting up at least forty points on almost everyone we played, I thought this was for sure going to be a shootout. I believe the over under was like seventy points or something, and I thought that was crazy. But our defense was underrated throughout the year. I mean it was the typical bend but don't break that ALIODI loved and there are so many studs on that defense, so it didn't surprise
me in that sense. But I was pretty surprised that, you know, especially in the second half, we didn't come out and look all that different and make that many crazy adjustments. I thought we'd come out of the locker room at half and hopefully hang thirty or whatever, and it's just, you know, it never came to fruition.
It was.
It was pretty sloppy overall. As one of my biggest memories is how quick the game went and how sloppy it was overall.
You hear sometimes in retrospect coaches saying, you know, it was a story that came out. Who knows how true it is after this year's LSU Oklahoma game that LSU coaches were quietly extremely confident that they didn't view Oklahoma as worthy of the stage. Who knows if it's true, But you do hear stories about coaches being especially confident.
What do you remember about the vibes heading into the game compared to other big game moments, Because you have now played in a number of huge Chip Kelly coached Oregon Team Games. Was there a sense of yeah, we got this, they're vulnerable, or was it if we do this and if we do that, we have a shot. What what was the sense of comfort and confidence do you from the from the coaching staff?
Super confident super confident ship was always about you know, control a wee can control and win the day, and you know, build up to the game, and the sense throughout the team is that as long as we played our game, there was no one that could beat us.
And we were all extremely bought in on that. And there were a few guys, especially on offense, like when Mike and I were pretty close, and I always checked in with a couple of the other backups on offense and just tried to get a sense because I wasn't in their meeting rooms, and every single one of them, you know, would would look me in the eyes and be like, oh, yeah, we're we're going to be fine.
So you know that.
Why do you think that was it was based on one film study, based on confidence with previous results. What was it that that filled the team with that much confidence?
I think it was because.
I don't know if they thought that Nick Fairley could could really take over a game like he had throughout the year. I remember talking to a couple of the old alignment and they're like, if you know, if we neutralize Nick fairly and if he runs upfield and takes himself out of a lot of the plays like he had throughout.
The year, then we're going to be fine. And then he blew up so many plays in the first half.
I thought they would, you know, do something different in the second half to to kind of mitigate what he was doing.
And it never happened.
But I think it was, you know, man demand, if you looked at their defense versus our offense, I think that you could still argue we were better. We just they they made plays, especially in the red zone, that we couldn't punch it in.
So, you know, so frustrated to look back on.
But have you watched that? Have you watched the game since?
So?
I had not watched it until.
I don't know if if you knew Tim Taylor, our backup hunter on the earlier years, he got married this summer and I stayed at Rob Beard's house. This was like August of this year, and we decided to watch it. Yeah, and we decided to watch it. I don't think he had ever watched it, and we came away like, oh my god, we we were the better team, Like we you know, it's just a few plays here there. Again, it was the little things that I came down to
and just so close. So yeah, that was the first time this summer that I actually watched it.
And what during your time do you feel like was a more talented team better team? What was that difference you mentioned the leadership? Where were other teams better, stronger? Do you feel like other teams could have done the little things perhaps that the twenty ten team couldn't do. Certainly there was a quarterback change after twenty eleven and
a different quarterback in two thousand and nine. Where do you think other teams during the Chip Kelly era would have fallen against this twenty ten Auburn team.
Yeah, so the twenty twelve team was our best team.
I know.
The athletic just came out with a piece the other day with the brackets, and the twenty ten team was the most talented team in the best and I think they would have beat that Auburn twenty twelve. Imagine Marcus the twenty five team. Yeah, imagine Marcus first case, that would have been such an awesome game. And I think the twenty eleven team was every bit as good as the twenty ten team.
It was just a younger team.
We graduated a lot of studs from that, you know, after the Auburn game. So I think talent wise, the twenty twelve team I think would have beat that Auburn team. And I think the twenty eleven team also would have been been a really good game. The team that played Ohio State in that rose bolm definitely wasn't as talented. I think Darren Thomas was better than Masoli overall, and so I think there, you know, there was a big
hole there. And then I think the difference of Kenyon and Michael versus Lemichael and la Garrett the year before was a big step up, and I think that would have made a huge difference.
So what is it like, locker room before the game, locker room at halftime, and sideline do you do you feel energy changing, do you feel confidence turning into concern? Or are you just so wrapped up in the game because it's just this this huge crowning moment of the sport you're playing in.
Sideline was always extremely confident. Every time we got the ball back, we thought that's when we were going to get rolling. And that's really how every game was, including that col game. It was like, every time we got the ball back, this was when we were going to put our foot on the gas and go. So there was always a lot of confidence. And I'd say pregame
is the same way. It's like we just wanted to get on the field and get kickoff going because you know, we knew we were going to blow out a lot of these teams going into it. I can't really comment much about the locker room at halftime. We're in there for a few minutes, and we hear coach Ow, you know, gathering up the defense and you know, screaming at the beginning.
But most of us.
Specialists when would get out there as early as possible and during halftime, so didn't see a lot during halftime. But I can just say our confidence on the sideline always was was really positive, really really upbeat.
Okay, fair enough, and after the game, is it is it a crush team? You know, the way Oregon loses the game, certainly with Michael Dyer with the last second field goal, is it is it depressed. Is it is it crushed?
Is it.
Sort of confused and in a daze. What do you remember about the emotion following a game? I mean, you're you have and I was on the field, you know, the blue and orange confetti comes down, You're going into a locker room losing the biggest game of your life. What do you remember about that emotion? What do you remember about communication with coaches and the way everything is gathered and even the minutia of a postgame loss.
Yeah, I remember personally just trying to get out of the locker room and get on the bus as quickly as possible. I you know, I witnessed a lot of a lot of tears and a lot of you know, just a lot of really sad handshakes. I think it's the way it allays down at the end of the day. I think, you know, we went toe to toe with them, and to have a play like Michael Dyer play really be the decision maker was what made that loss that
much worse. Right, and then the fact that for most away games, you know, you fly out right after the game and you get back. The fact that we had to like go back to the hotel that night, and still kind of all sit around and wait to flock out the next day.
I think it made it that much worse.
So it was it was quiet, If I used one word, it was really eerie, really quiet.
Really sad.
But do the coaches communicate? Is there is there a giant team meeting? Is there like a debriefing. Is there a coach saying, you know, like looking at film, not necessarily film right after the game obviously, but is there is there a communication with the coaches saying, you know, we did everything we could or we didn't. You know what is that like the interaction with the staff?
Yeah, yeah, it was.
I definitely remember Chip addressing the team and just saying how how proud he was of us and how we have nothing to hang our heads about. I don't remember exactly what was said, but I just remember him saying something to the effect of like you have nothing to hang your hats about, and how proud he was of us, and he was always, you know, pretty positive even after
losses and taking them as a learning experience. So that's the general takeaway of what I remember him saying to the team as a whole.
And now as you look back, what do you what do you remember about playing at Oregon that people don't know, people misunderstand, people are one hundred percent correct about when you look back at this time, Oregon goes to a National Championship game and you went to You went to four BCS games, right, you go to the Rose, the Fiesta, the Fiesta again, and the Rose again. What do you remember? What do you take away from the Chip Kelly era and that level of success.
Yeah, I personally take away how So I came in Bloodi's final year, so I saw what the culture and the day to day it was like pre and post Chips and so I'm you know, I'm a huge Chi Kelly defender, and you know I'll defend him to the death. I just think what he did coming into that program and changing the culture, changing the style of play, putting his stamp on it.
It was really remarkable to be a part of.
And you know, the teams that bought into it really benefited from it. And he didn't try to just develop us as players, but as people, you know, like people started going to class more and getting better grades, and our networking opportunities got better and better. So just the little things that ship did to make us better people. I'll always be thankful for from a football perspective, obviously getting to play in all those big.
Games, winning that Rose Bowl.
Being a kid growing up in southern California, that's like what I always wanted.
So I'll always.
Remember like running on the field when time expired during that Rose Bowl and like jumping into David Paulson's arms.
It was it was It was like one of the best memories ever.
So, you know, just winning a Rose Bowl, the first one that and I forget how many years for Oregon. Just being part of that was really special. And just the culture shift that ship in still during his time there was awesome to be a part of.
We've talked a lot on the show about the secret sauce of winning in championship programs. A lot of that is that word culture and buy in. And you have limited experience that the final year of Mike Bolotti was a good but not great team. You end up in the Holiday Bowl, you red shirted that year. Is it just a coaches being more humans, being more direct about expectations, being more empathetic? What is to you? What is championship culture?
Like?
What when you talk about buying, is it just getting people to care, explaining things, getting them to understand what is expected to them. What, how do you actually define buy in in culture?
I think it was just put really simply for us, like if you're not going to buy in, you're gonna be out of here. Like if if you can't be accountable to get good grades and go to class, then I'm not going to play you on a Saturday. So it was just laid out really simply for us, okay. And there was a lot more accountability teammates to teammate from winter conditioning to staying there for the summer and you know, taking summer school and conditioning in the summer.
There was just a lot more player to player accountability, you know, guys like Walt Thurman and TJ. Ward, especially that first year after we were like big culture instillers. I'd say, but yeah, I think it was just player to player accountability was the biggest change that I noticed.
Jeff Palmer, thank you very much for your time and for your insight and just speaking from the heart. Michael Dyer was down.
He was definitely down. He was.
All right, man cool.
Thank you to mister Jeff Palmer for stopping by sharing some of his insight twenty two to nineteen. Auburn won the National Championship for the twenty ten college football season. They played the game on January tenth, twenty eleven, out
there in Glendale, Arizona. Dan and I were there. I will post as part of this posting out on our website and maybe on some of our social channels that video that I mentioned earlier, the video that we put to the score that we ended up making that got us a little bit of a claim, which was really cool and a lot of fun to make, So you can relive that moment with us. I watched it a few times last night, still get a kick out of it.
Can't believe we put that thing together, But we'll put that out on our website for those of you who want to take a stroll down memory lane with us. We would also encourage you to email us at sliverbo at gmail dot com. We don't know how long we're going to be in this offseason mode. Quite frankly, it's a much different offseason given current world events. So we always ready willing and able to read your suggestions for what we should talk about next. Do you like these shows?
Do you like us rewatching games. Great, let us know which game we should watch next. Do you have another idea, something else that we can cover to keep that fire of college football burning even in these uncertain times?
Dan, do you have a non Notre Dame and I'm trying, I will think of a non Oregon game that you still need to make peace of that you were just either disappointed with or surprised by and are still trying to figure out how to feel about a specific matchup. I'm putting you on the spot as you think about hundreds or thousands of games that are cycling through your brain. But well, if there's anything that jumps out, let's think on that.
A game that was formative for me was that National championship game I want to say in two thousand and one between Miami and Ohio State's.
I think that's later, that's three. So two thousand and one was nebrass So the two thousand and one season was Nebraska Miami, Miami shells them.
The game where willis mcgae he blew out his knee right. That game, to me is one that I still have trouble with. And the pass interference game past interference game, but that knee injury went through me in a way that most injuries don't, and it's something that I still remember to this day. Maybe not so much from a
game standpoint. The game was incredible. There were a lot of megastars on the field for that game, but that injury in and of itself is something that I still think about and had a really really profound impact on me as a college football fan, to be honest. So I want to say it instantly comes to mind.
It was all three. It was ACLMCLLCL, I believe PCL, whichever it was, but it was It.
Was the fact that he came back and was able to play again in the NFL. Didn't achieve nearly the success that made me some thought he could have before the injury, but nonetheless, the fact that he got to where he was an accomplishment. Unto itself, that game stands out. I would need more time to think of.
Other ones, but no, I'm I'm looking at some of the stuff from this game. MVP. Craig Krenzel, how do we not who I think is a doctor?
Now?
I want to say, it's a Keith Jackson game. So he went through to go through two thousand. I know we did USC Texas, so he still had a few years a couple Well, he did the rid of this game.
He did the retirement tour where everyone gave him gifts, and then he didn't retire, which I think is still one of the greatest schemes ever played.
Totally true, I'm totally I'm I'm down to do this game. This was the two thousand and three Tostedos Festival. I want to say, I watched this at an ex girlfriend's parents house. That's that's your that's AT's I suppose. There's a lot of that guy names in this game, including you know, everybody on that Miam that crazy Miami team. That's what Andre Johnson and Sean Taylor and John Nathan Vilma, DJ Williams. There's Entre role who's in a lot. Yeah, so I'm down. You want to do that, We can
do that. It's also pretty sound verbal, which I like a lot.
All Right, well, let's plan on doing that. If anyone else has any other suggestions for games that we could watch, We're open minded. We'll take a look. But for now we'll go with that as sort of our our marching orders until next week.
Oh Man, Maurice Clarett. Yeah. Oh, there's a lot happening here, a lot going on in that game. I'm feeling that juice TI all right.
So on that note, thank you for bearing with us, thank you to mister Palmer for stopping by with some of his wisdom and first hand account, and we will be back next week. In the meantime, we'd encourage everyone wash your hands, stay safe, and as I say each and every week, thank you so much for listening.
Stay solid, Pe