Oregon changes perceptions: This is a team with an edge

PASADENA, Calif. — The silver trophy was being passed around the Oregon locker room, one player to the next, some of them with rose stems clenched between their teeth or tucked behind their ears. Music was playing and hugs were being exchanged as senior safety Erick Dargan cleared out the middle of the room and did a bare-chested dance.

And then, as the Ducks' players let the reality settle in over what they had accomplished Thursday at the Rose Bowl, over how they had embarrassed the defending national champions and ripped away a decade's worth of narratives about their supposed softness in big games, receiver Byron Marshall leaned in and revealed the exact moment Oregon knew it would beat Florida State.

"From the first kickoff, I swear" he said. "I don't think there was any doubt we were going to lose this game. We were eager to play four days ago. We felt like we had something to prove."

Take everything you thought you knew about the Oregon Ducks and put it in a museum. Lock it away like a relic from another era and mark Jan. 1, 2015, as the day the Oregon experience became something totally different than what the rest of the country had ever known.

By the time Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston fell backward in that blur of a third quarter, surrendering the ball and the last bit of hope for the Seminoles to extend their 29-game winning streak, Oregon's former identity as a funky little finesse team from the Pacific Northwest had given way to a new reality.

The brand of football Oregon used to destroy the Seminoles 59-20 was not a fluke. It was not about a gimmick or a uniform or even a tempo. It was about lining up and attacking Florida State in every way possible, about imposing themselves physically on a team with future NFL players all over the field, about making sure the nation knows this program is ready to take the final step.

"I'm not sure this is our best team since I've been at Oregon talent-wise, but there's very few teams that I've seen that have come together as a group like this team," offensive coordinator Scott Frost said. "The best thing our guys do is they don't ever have to rise to an occasion because they trust the work they put in. All they did tonight was go out and act like themselves."

More to the point, they acted like national champions.

Sure, there's still one more big game to win, one more elite opponent to conquer. But from the Florida State sideline, they had to see a little bit of their former selves in the Ducks. It took such an effort just for the Seminoles to stay in contention, so many good plays by quarterback Jameis Winston just to give his team a chance to hang around in the second half, it only took a couple missteps for the situation to go from manageable to morose.