2009 Week 1

The defending National Champions, The Florida Gators, walked into Autzen Stadium hoping to start their season off on the right foot. After marching down the field on their opening drive and putting up a quick 7-0 lead, it looked as if they were on their way.
However, Oregon returned the following kickoff 96 yards and never slowed down from there. The Ducks went on to put up 52 unanswered points in a rout of the #1 Gators. The domination was something Florida QB Tim Tebow had never experienced, "It's shocking to be honest. I never expected us to lose, especially not this way."

Tebow finished with an unprecedented five interceptions, two of which were returned for touchdowns by the defense. Linebacker Casey Mathews of Oregon was named the Ducks player of the game. He finished with 8 Takles, two of those which came for a loss, and a interception returned for a touchdown. The Oregon defense and running game led by Legarrette Blount(121 Yds, 1 TD) led to the Oregon QB, J. Masoli to only throwing the ball eight times the whole game.

While Florida was surely shocked, Oregon knew they had the capability of beating the stacked Gators. "We come into this season with the mindset we are good enough to win the National Championship," says Legarrette Blount, "This game might be shocking to the rest of the world, but not to us, we knew we were this good."

The Ducks travel to Durham, NC next week to take on the Duke Blue Devils. How will the Ducks handle sucess? We will find out next week.