The Oregon Ducks came in to the 2013 college football season as everyone’s number one hope to end the domination of the Alabama Crimson Tide and the SEC on the national championship.  Coach Chip Kelly had left Eugene to become an NFL coach for the Philadelphia Eagles but he left behind a loaded team with a high octane offensive system.  They had one shot at a national championship and fell in the BCS title game to the Auburn Tigers a few years ago.  This was supposed to be the year that they got another chance.  The Ducks rolled over the competition the first 8 weeks of the season as star QB Marcus Mariota vaulted his way up the Heisman Trophy contender’s list.  He had 450 total yards and 4 total touchdowns as Oregon whipped the Washington Huskies.  He didn’t have a stellar game against the UCLA Bruins but Nike University won easily anyway so he didn’t need to have a big game.  Oregon then got knocked off by Stanford but still had a slim but realistic chance to get back into the BCS title hunt especially after Stanford ending up losing to the USC Trojans the very next game!  Mariota wasn’t bad in the Stanford game, he just wasn’t good enough to lead the Ducks to victory.  He rebounded nicely against Utah and entered today having thrown ZERO interceptions in the first 10 games of the season.

Today changed a lot of things.  It might have changed Mariota’s standings in the eyes of the Heisman Trophy voters.  The Ducks got embarrassed by the Arizona Wildcats on a day that didn’t have many watchable games.  That meant more eyes than usual were watching in as Oregon’s losing changed the title picture of the PAC-12 and the BCS.  The most amazing thing that they saw though was the changing of Mariota having no interceptions on the season:

COLLEGE FOOTBALL’S PLAY OF THE YEAR.  Hands down.  No questions asked.  Nothing else can even come close.