Oregon Dominates, and Everybody Loses

It’s obvious the Oregon Ducks have been cheated. They were stronger, quicker, faster, more passionate, more physical, more clever, better coached and better prepared than Colorado. And it took about two minutes of watching Tuesday’s Fiesta Bowl to realize that. Their 38-16 win confirmed it.

But the Ducks aren’t the only people who will feel a bit sick in the stomach Thursday when Miami plays Nebraska for the “national championship.” National championship of what? Of wishful thinking? Of short-circuited computers? Of middle-aged, blazer-wearing men so eager to protect their “BCS” that all common sense is abandoned for a “formula” that will probably change again next season if Nebraska beats Miami?

The Rose Bowl has been cheated.

It deserved, in its turn as host of the “national championship” game, to have the two best teams playing. It doesn’t. Should Nebraska upset Miami, it will only prove that Oregon would have beaten Miami even worse.

And the Rose Bowl could have kept a small piece of a lovely tradition if Oregon had been invited, as it should have been, to the Granddaddy of Them All. At least one-half of the tradition would have endured. Which was good enough this year. Let the Big Ten fend for itself.

Also cheated: the Pac-10. How did it become conventional wisdom that the Big 12 was so super? Why did anyone think Nebraska did something impressive by beating Oklahoma? Oklahoma barely beat a mediocre Arkansas team Tuesday. Where does it compute that Oregon’s one bad quarter, the fourth against Stanford, is so much worse than Nebraska’s one horrible game against Colorado?

As Oregon beat up Colorado, beat up the Buffaloes physically and mentally, as Duck receivers ran by Colorado defenders, as the Oregon line protected quarterback Joey Harrington when it needed to, then opened up gigantic holes for the tailbacks, as Coach Mike Bellotti made inspired play calls, it became time to wonder what all the “experts” had been watching all season.

Cheated, too, are West Coast football fans who deserved to be bragging about the Ducks, who should be preparing for a big day Thursday, watching kids from Oregon, of course, but also California, Arizona, Nevada and Washington. Southern California fans have been especially cheated. Of the 91 Oregon players listed on the Fiesta Bowl flip card, 32 were from Southern California. Those 32, their families, their high school coaches, their girlfriends and grade-school buddies, should have been cramming the Rose Bowl.

Television has been cheated.

Duck tailback Onterrio Smith said that he would love to play Miami. “Our speed versus their speed,” Smith said. “Our offense versus their defense; our defense versus their offense; West Coast speed versus East Coast speed. What a game that would be. Honestly, I think we match up better against Miami than Nebraska does. I know people will say I’m biased. But don’t you think I’m right?”

Yes.

Most of all, though, it is the Oregon players who have been cheated.

As Bellotti said, “It’s difficult to tell my kids why we aren’t playing in the Rose Bowl.”

How does Bellotti explain how any computer believes Nebraska is better than Oregon?

Wide receiver Samie Parker smiled and said, “I can’t figure out those computers unless there’s a Y2K bug. There must be a big Y2K bug in there somewhere.”

Most of the Ducks were graceful in saying they were just happy to have showcased their talents, that they had beaten Colorado so emphatically, that they had forced the football-watching part of the country to at least notice the same team that humiliated Nebraska, 62-36, had been manhandled by Oregon.

“There’s not anything more we can do,” wide receiver Keenan Howry said.

“There is a reason we are where we are. We lost a game to Stanford. Once we lost that game, at that moment we couldn’t handle our own fate anymore. So it will not hurt me to watch the Rose Bowl on Thursday. I’ll sit and I’ll root for Nebraska. I guess the only question I’ve got that no one can answer is how the computer had us ranked behind Colorado. They did have two losses.”

It would be nice to ask the computer to explain that. The computer took into account, apparently, that Oregon played a lot of close games but didn’t take into account that Nebraska got waxed in its most important.

Blame the programming geeks for that.

But how to explain why so many media experts made Colorado the “hottest team” in the country on the basis of its walloping of Nebraska and its 39-37 win over Texas in the Big 12 championship game? In its last four games, the Colorado defense had given up 124 points. Yet the Buffaloes were being spoken of as the best team in the country. Nobody said that about Oregon.

“We made a statement today,” Harrington said. “We scored 38 unanswered points and shot down the hottest team in the country. We showed that we deserve to be playing for a share of the national championship.”

“We don’t agree with the BCS,” Smith said, “but so be it. Those are the rules. I wish the computer had showed us a little bit of love. But it didn’t. So be it.”

The Ducks left Sun Devils Stadium wearing championship T-shirts, crying happy tears and smiling happy smiles. If they are bitter, they aren’t letting us see. And most of all, that makes them champions.

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Diane Pucin can be reached at diane.pucin@latimes.com.