Ducks and Huskers — The Same Story, Until It Wasn’t

How Nebraska and Oregon built dominant football machines on the same principles — and why only one found a second act

Oregon wide receiver Charles Nelson fends off Nebraska defensive back Aaron Williams at Autzen Stadium in 2017. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

About ten years ago, when Oregon lost to Nebraska in Lincoln, I had a realization that Oregon was following the same arc Nebraska did. You know that old yarn — Bob Devaney built a machine, Tom Osborne spearheaded it for 25 years, and when he left, everything fell apart in short order.

In Oregon, I saw the same system offense run better than anyone else, the same coaching continuity, the same machine-like consistency without a backyard full of blue chips to draw from. My question was whether Mark Helfrich, Oregon’s coach from 2013 to 2016, was the Frank Solich to Chip Kelly's Osborne — a nice guy who couldn't quite meet the stratospheric bar his predecessor set, his cracks papered over by a Heisman quarterback in Marcus Mariota, just like Eric Crouch once masked Solich's.

As Helfrich fumbled his way to a 4-8 season and a quick dismissal, I saw the parallel between the two holding steady — it was like watching the same movie with different actors. I just didn't know yet how Oregon’s story would end.

Oregon head coach Mark Helfrich during the Ducks' 2016 game at Nebraska. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Both Nebraska and Oregon spent their peak years scrounging with bloody fingernails for any edge over rivals with more talent growing in their regions. Both found it in the same three places: a unique offense that bent the sport to their strengths, a strength-and-conditioning program that outpaced everyone else’s, and a continuity of purpose that let the machine hum from one season to the next.

When Chip Kelly inherited the program Mike Belotti built, it felt like Devaney handing the keys to Osborne — both Belotti and Devaney revived their respective programs from the ash heap in large part because they found innovative offensive minds in Kelly and Osborne.

When Kelly left for the NFL, it echoed Osborne's retirement. Both schools handed the baton to an offensive-minded successor who rode a Heisman quarterback all the way to a national title game he was promptly routed in — Solich against Miami in 2002, Helfrich to Ohio State in 2015. For a time, Oregon looked like Nebraska’s story playing out 13 years later.

Ohio State running back Ezekiel Elliott runs for a 33-yard touchdown against Oregon during the College Football Playoff National Championship game on Jan. 12, 2015. | USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

The programs were mirror images of one another, but they fell short of being carbon copies. They resembled one another in shape but took opposite courses. Nebraska took the field for a generation in the same austere scarlet and cream uniforms, a visual representation of the hardscrabble state it represented. Oregon on the other hand celebrated its sartorial ingenuity, rotating its garish green-and-yellow threads nearly every week. One school ran on time-tested tradition; the other on nouveau riche panache. And where Nebraska once enjoyed a facilities edge over the field, Oregon built the Taj Mahal of football complexes — its richest booster (unlike the Oracle of Omaha down the road) lavishing the alma mater with everything needed to lure starry-eyed teenagers to their program.

The inversion runs all the way to their identities. Oregon prided itself as the fuel-starved operator of the blur offense, with speed merchants like LaMichael James, D'Anthony Thomas, and Dennis Dixon thriving in open space — you might outmuscle them, but you'll never outrun them.

Nebraska prided itself on being the toughest team around, a brand built on being big and brawny with legendary linemen like Dave Rimington, Zach Wiegert, and Will Shields – you might outrun them, but you'll never outmuscle them.

That trench advantage was the engine of the mid-'90s titles — harassing the likes of Danny Wuerffel and Peyton Manning on one side of the ball, plowing the road for Lawrence Phillips and Ahman Green on the other. (There will never be another team that yields zero sacks, incurs zero holding penalties, and paves the way for 400 rushing yards a game the way 1995 Nebraska did.)

So each school became a system calibrated to the extreme of one idea — speed and power. There will likely never be a team as dominant between the hashes as those '90s 'Skers, nor one as capable of embarrassing opponents with sonic-barrier-bending speed as those Ducks. And perhaps therein lies the rub: Nebraska built the trenches, Oregon the skill positions.

Each identity had its own kryptonite. Oregon's offense found itself woefully outmatched by the brawnier fronts of Stanford and the SEC — earning the "soft" tag the way Nebraska once earned "slow" against the southern speed of Miami and Florida State.

The 1995 Orange Bowl timeout with 3:14 left. | Nebraska Athletics

The difference is that Nebraska eventually evolved to correct its weakness. That generation of Oregon teams never quite did. As Ohio State proved against the Ducks with the title on the line, championships are still decided by defense, line play, and physicality. Nebraska turned its edge into three national titles in four years and a 49-2 record. Oregon is still searching for its first finish atop the polls, and Marcus Mariota, hailed as the transcendent triggerman who would finally push them over the top, their own Tommie Frazier, proved in the end more Crouch than Frost.

Here's where the mirror cracks and where I got the ending wrong. In both stories, the anointed successor fails and the dynasty dissolves. Obituaries get written. Their reigns become a shadow that hangs like specters over the program for generations to come.

Dan Lanning has Oregon playing at another level. | USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

I assumed Oregon would follow Nebraska into the wilderness. When Solich was fired, Nebraska started its long wandering, cycling through Bill Callahan, Mike Riley, and Scott Frost. Oregon, facing the same crossroads, found a worthy successor quickly in Mario Cristobal, who kept the Ducks among the nation's best even without getting them over the hump. When he left for Miami, Dan Lanning took them to another level, winning the Big Ten in their first year in the Big Ten and making playoff runs since (though this season has left Oregon fans frustrated).

That's the real lesson of the comparison. For a decade the two programs looked like the same idea pointed in opposite directions. But the thing that ultimately separates them isn't speed or brawn, panache or tradition. It's that Oregon became what Nebraska couldn't remain: a system bigger than any one coach.

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