EUGENE, Ore. — You knew you had reached exotic soil by the sign along Highway 101: Entering Tsunami Hazard Zone.
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This corner of the country has all kinds of sights unseen in our part of the world. "Fire the Liar" stickers on every other bumper. Makeshift espresso shacks where we would place a snow-cone stand. A $500 fine for pumping your own gas. College Station this ain't.
Oklahoma plays Oregon today in what should be a wild Autzen Stadium, what could be a season-defining showdown and what most definitely will be historic.
The Sooners never have been here before.
For 100 years, Oklahoma has loaded up the Schooner and exported its most-prized commodity all over the USA.
To Arkansas in 1899. To Texas in 1901. By 1917, the Sooners journeyed to Big Ten country (Illinois). They went to Hawaii in 1931. To the East Coast (Washington, D.C.) in 1932.
To the Colorado Rockies in 1936. To Miami in 1938. To the West Coast (Santa Clara) in 1940. To the Northeast (Philadelphia) in 1942.
To New Orleans in 1948. To New England (Boston) in 1949. To Notre Dame in 1952. To New York City itself in 1961.
But not until today have the Sooners graced the Pacific Northwest. Never has OU played football within the great expanse of Washington or Idaho, Oregon or Montana.
That changes today against the Ducks, and Sooner fans sense something special. They began filling flights early in the week, and all week have been spotted up and down the gorgeous Oregon coast.
This has the feel of the Alabama adventure three years ago, when OU for the first time dove into the Deep South football culture and found a world of Civil War cemeteries and civil-rights monuments, of antebellum homes and even older swamps, of thick forests and thicker Southern drawls.
This is a clash of cultures, all right, and on the football field, too.
This is old-money Oklahoma vs. new-money Oregon. Stately tradition against psychedelic Nike. A school twice blessed by the BCS gods (Sooners 2003-04) against the school cursed by the same (Ducks 2001). A school that captured the fancy of the Eastern press more than half a century ago against a school still seeking the same.
This game intrigues the Oregonians, too. Tickets into the Autzen Zoo are kooky scarce and crazy expensive, and my counterpart in Portland this week suggested that toppling these not-great Sooners would be the biggest regular-season victory in the dozen seasons of Mike Bellotti, who has felled Michigan and is 4-3 against USC.
The Sooner camp this week fought the notion that OU-Oregon is a big game.
Bob Stoops said, "You enjoy coaching in any atmosphere. You put the headphones on, you don't hear anybody but yourselves and you're kind of in your own little world, a 100-yard field and the out-of-bounds lines."
Who's he trying to kid? Stoops is the guy who admits to walking around stadiums before a big game, taking in the wonder of it all. Stoops knows the stakes today.
The Oklahoma-Oregon winner moves on in college football's annual roulette. The loser regroups and ponders a Holiday Bowl repeat.
Oklahoma seeks to return to the national spotlight after a year's hiatus. A loss today, after mediocre starts against UAB and Washington, would signal continuation of the slump.
Oregon seeks to end its Sooner curse. The Ducks lost to OU in 2004, when the Sooners were up and Oregon down, and the Ducks lost again in 2005, when the Sooners were down and the Ducks up. Through two games of 2006, we don't know if the Sooners and Ducks are up or down.
So they meet one final time, this time on a patch of turf some call the nation's foremost homefield advantage and in a region as virgin to the Sooners as it was to Meriwether Lewis and William Clark 200 years ago.
"We've seen a lot of places," said OU quarterback Paul Thompson, the man on the spot. "I'm just ready to get out there and play football. I'm not worried about any of the glamour."
Worry? No reason to worry about it. But revel in it. This is a special day.
Top homefield advantages
The 10 best homefield advantages, comprised by combining recent rankings from The Sporting News and Rivals.
1. LSU's Tiger Stadium: Hard to beat the Tigers in Death Valley on a Saturday night.
2. Florida's Ben Hill Griffin Stadium: The Swamp forces foes to go to a silent snap count.
3. Oregon's Autzen Stadium: Wild and obnoxious fans at the Autzen Zoo.
4. Virginia Tech's Lane Stadium: Remoteness of Blacksburg, Va., scares off visiting fans.
5. Ohio State's Ohio Stadium: The Horseshoe is on the National Registry of Historic Places.
6. Texas A&M's Kyle Field: Aggies have all kinds of traditional rituals.
7. Florida State's Doak Campbell Stadium: At least Chief Osceola doesn't plant a flaming spear anymore.
8. Penn State's Beaver Stadium: Fans go nuts during pregame bull-in-the-ring drill.
9. Auburn's Jordan-Hare Stadium: It's come a long way; Jordan-Hare opened in 1939 with 7,500 seats.
10. Wisconsin's Camp Randall Stadium: Visiting teams must walk through the Badger student section.
Oregon foes
The five biggest non-conference foes to play at the University of Oregon:
1. Notre Dame: Irish tied 13-13 in 1982.
2. Michigan: Wolverines lost 31-27 in 2003.
3. Ohio State: Buckeyes won 30-0 in 1967.
4. Wisconsin: Badgers lost 31-28 in 2001.
5. Iowa: Hawkeyes lost 40-18 in 1994.
By Berry Tramel5 things that make it tough1. It's a true bowl: Autzen is one concrete structure. Once sound is made, it stays trapped inside the stadium. You'd have to yell up to get it out. And even then, it'd be loud.
2. The Autzen Zoo: Oregon fans pride themselves on being out-of-control noisy. Kind of like Oklahoma State fans in Gallagher-Iba.
3. No Prefontaine here: Autzen doesn't have a track circling the football field. That puts Duck fans right on the field. The fans' proximity to the action makes them a part of the game.
4. Late night at the Fog: The state of Oregon is notorious for its weather. Never uncomfortably hot and never uncomfortably cold. But this time of year, the Williamette Valley is all kinds of wet. It never really rains in Eugene. It's more of a drizzle-fog. There's a 30-percent chance of precipitation for today's game.
5. The game of the century: The Ducks have been looking forward to hosting Oklahoma for a long time. Today's game marks one of the biggest non-conference games in Oregon history. The Sooners are 6-0 against the Ducks, but they've never played in Eugene. Will the Autzen factor be enough to make it 6-1?
By Blake Jackson
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