LOS ANGELES — Oregon offensive coordinator Scott Frost had no problem addressing the “F word” on Tuesday.
No, not that one. The Ducks don’t have a problem with being labeled as “flashy” or “fast” either. Yet the perception the Ducks — who have a 69-10 record thorough the Chip Kelly-Mark Helfrich era — are a “finesse” teams still remains.
Maybe that’s because Alabama, the only team with a better record (72-8) since 2009, is considered the textbook power football program. Maybe it’s because of that flashy-and-fast offense. Whatever the season, Frost isn’t buying.
“First of all, I'd say we don't care what perception is at Oregon,” Frost said. “We do what we do.”
Frost then laid out the evidence heading into Thursday’s Rose Bowl matchup with Florida State, which inherited the label of the next “physical” team. He should know. Frost won a national championship as an option quarterback for Nebraska in 1997. That team didn’t face those questions.
“No team's going to win every game,” Frost said. “It does upset us some when we hear we're not physical. We do spread it out and run it, but just because you don't have two tight ends and three fullbacks in the football game at one time doesn't mean you can't be physical.”
Frost said wins against Michigan State and Stanford — two top-six FBS defenses — back up that assessment most. The Ducks scored 91 points and racked up 1,016 total yards in those two games. Yet all five Oregon offensive players on the podium Tuesday were asked about the finesse label, and the dreaded “s-word” — soft — even worked into the conversation. That’s when Oregon tackle Jake Fisher offered a sarcastic laugh.
“You want to downplay our game, feel free, but we're still going to come out and we're still going to play our hardest,” Fisher said. “Sometimes that's not good enough, and we don't get the 'W.’ The majority of the time it is.”
Running backs Royce Freeman and Byron Marshall also took exception to the question, when Marshall belted out, “I don’t know where y’all are getting your facts from.” Freeman piggy-backed the answer.
“It’s just something that people resort to when we lose,” Freeman said. “It’s something they pick at, trying to say we're a finesse team, things like that. Ultimately, I don't think that of our team at all.”
Oregon has won at least 10 games every year since 2008, one year before Kelly’s arrival. Mark Helfrich is 23-3 the last two seasons.
That success is enough for Florida State defensive coordinator Charles Kelly to dismiss the notion Oregon is a finesse team. Kelly emphasized that not all spread offenses deserve that tag. He said the Ducks run between the tackles — the ‘A’ gaps — as well as anybody. Finesse teams don’t do that. He’s also heard this line in the same place last year.
“To me, finesse is throwing the ball around the perimeter all the time,” Kelly said. “They move the pile. Going into the national championship game last year, the same thing was said about Auburn.”
The Ducks can talk around it all they want, but that label will persist until this program breaks through for its first national championship. To do that, Oregon must pass the physical against Florida State before advancing, preferably against Alabama, for the national title. Keep in mind the Ducks’ last two nonconference losses were to SEC heavyweights Auburn and LSU.
Win against the defending national champions and the SEC, and Oregon might be able to destroy the finesse myth once and for all. If not, then the same questions will come in 2015. But like Frost says, the Ducks don’t care what the perception is.
“Every time we've won a game against a physical team, not much is said about it,” Frost said. “The few games we've lost in the last five or six years, everybody seems to find something to point toward and points toward that.
“Like I said, our players take that as a challenge whenever they hear it.”
