The stadium operations crew in New Jersey piped in the theme music from The Sopranos on Saturday before kickoff. I wondered if a bunch of guys with fat fingers wearing Armani suits might show up for the coin toss.
Gabagool, anyone?
Oregon beat Rutgers, 56-10, on Saturday.
The Ducks departed Eugene for Newark, N.J., on Friday just before midday on a charter plane. They landed in the early afternoon on the East Coast, just 23 hours before Saturday’s kickoff.
It was an efficient and orchestrated hit by a ticked-off team eager to change the conversation after spending a week answering questions about losing to Indiana.
Dan Lanning’s first-ever Big Ten regular-season loss landed with an unforgiving thud last week.
“Are you saying I’m on the hot seat, John?” Lanning asked me on Thursday.
“You’re not,” I told him.
“I’m only two weeks away,” Lanning said. “That’s how it works. That’s the world we live in.”