The stakes couldn't be higher for the Pac-12 champions.
On Monday night, Ohio State will face Oregon hopes of winning the school's sixth consensus national championship. The Ducks are playing the Buckeyes in hopes of winning their school's first-ever title. This puts Ohio State in an unusual position: gatekeeper of the national championship club.
Few college football programs are among the best in the country year-in and year-out. What distinguishes the schools that are in the top 25 every year from those who are not is quite simple: national titles. Win a national championship, and your program is immune to the vagaries of time. If Oregon is ever going to get over the hump, now is the time.
Five years ago, Ohio State defeated Oregon in the 2010 Rose Bowl. Since then, Oregon has been been the hottest program in the country. The Ducks have won 60 games since 2010, and their winning percentage of .896 is best in the country. The Ducks have won three major bowl games in a row, and Marcus Mariota just won the Heisman Trophy by one of the largest margins in history. It has never been a better time to be an Oregon fan.
And yet... there is still unfinished business. If Oregon doesn't come through with the big prize, a national championship, all of this could be for naught.
Oregon's demographics do not naturally suit it to being a powerhouse school. Unlike the Ohio States and Alabamas and Florida States of the world, Oregon is not a hotbed of local football talent. It has played for a national championship twice before, in 1958 and 2011, and lost both times.
The most recent programs to rise to superpower status -- Miami and Florida State -- did so with brash attitude and swagger. Oregon's players feel its attitude is what has allowed them to separate from USC and UCLA over the last few years.
"I think it's just the culture, honestly, I think that's what it boils down to. It's a lot different up at Oregon," said linebacker Tony Washington. "Guys feel that and understand that and what to be part of it."
Oregon's advantage is having a fan with deep pockets and connections: Phil Knight, founder of Nike. Over the last 10-15 years, Nike has given Oregon all of its prototype college football gear, which helped to make Oregon the it program of college football. It has been a boon to recruiting;As head coach Mark Helfrich conceded, "We have to kind of go everywhere, and that kind of started the whole campaign and the movement of the helmets and the marketing and all that kind of stuff."
What if that goes away? Oregon's nearest rival over the last half-decade, Stanford, went from being an also ran to a national contender under Jim Harbaugh. When Harbaugh left, David Shaw took over and the wins kept coming, it appeared the Cardinal had a dynasty in the making. But Stanford lost three games in 2013 and five games this year, and now its future is in doubt.
It must feel odd to the Buckeyes -- after spending so much of the season struggling through genuine adversity, adopting an underdog mentality, the Buckeyes are the old money antagonists trying to keep the new money Ducks from joining their club. Even more so since the relationship between the football programs is strong.
On several occasions, Urban Meyer has visited Eugene to see how Oregon football does what it does on offense. Ohio State's offense this year has taken a few leads from Oregon, from zone blocking to blinding tempo to Oregon's patented sweep play. The Buckeyes can do things the Ducks can't, like pound Ezekiel Elliott down their throats, but both team's offenses have similarities.
Even if the local talent isn't there, a win on Monday night could turn Oregon into a perennial contender with good recruiting and community support. "One of the great things I've found out about Oregon is the way, and I brought it back to Salt Lake City, is everywhere you went, there was green and gold," Meyer said. "I just thought that Eugene, Oregon, does a great job supporting their school. Not every place is like that."
Even now, Oregon players seem to have trouble wrapping their heads around the significance of the game on Monday night. "To win it would -- I wouldn't know how I'd describe that feeling. To be the first team to win it from Oregon would be just an incredible deal," Mariota said.
To do that, the Ducks will have to go through a powerhouse eager to rain on their parade.
