Mosch: Slow your roll on ‘We want Bama’

Posted on October 21, 2013

Originally Posted on Emerald Media via UWIRE

Win the Day. It’s the philosophy that Chip Kelly instilled into the Oregon football program during his six-year tenure with the Ducks. At its core, Win the Day encompasses the mindset of taking control of the day at hand rather than gazing down the road, which is precisely why it’s plastered on the walls of Oregon’s locker room and the players’ entrance to Autzen Stadium.

Kelly may no longer be at the helm for the Ducks, but his mantra has evolved into one to live by for players and is a motivational motto throughout Eugene. Yet, the latest slogan, chant and hashtag catching on throughout the University of Oregon campus seems to be, We want Bama.

The irony abounds.

In case you missed it, two weeks ago, a pair of UO students began selling T-shirts that read “We want Bama” at a booth in the EMU Amphitheater for $10. They have sold over 185 T-shirts since.

The phrase gained recognition over the weekend, as USA Today, Bleacher Report, The Huntsville Times and the Crimson White, Alabama’s student newspaper, were among those to catch wind of the T-shirts referencing the BCS Championship showdown that is likely to ensue should Oregon and Alabama run the table.

There was at least one sign that cited the newly coined phrase at Saturday’s game against Washington State and a few — albeit weak — “We want Bama” chants broke out in the student section late in the game.

I get it. It’s all in good spirit. It’s a bunch of college kids enthusiastic about their football team — one that happens to be the No. 3 team in the country.

But chanting “We want Bama” goes against everything Win the Day stands for.

It has nothing to do with “jinxing” Oregon’s perfect season. Rather it has everything to do with a Pac-12 conference that’s the strongest it’s been in years and that Oregon has yet to tackle its toughest opponents.

UCLA and Stanford are dangerous threats to dash national title aspirations and both the Bruins and Cardinal can attest that you don’t want to sleep on Utah.

Oregon State would love nothing more than to be the team to end a perfect Oregon season and if the Ducks are able to make it past all of that, they would still have to beat the Pac-12 South champion in the conference championship game.

It’s tempting to lump “We want Bama” into the same category as I Love My Ducks, the brilliant tune created by the student-formed group “Supwitchugirl” and blasted at seemingly every dorm and tailgate party on game day just a few years ago.

But that was something everyone was able to get behind. The fans loved it, the players were game and even former Ducks Joey Harrington and Ed Dickson made cameos in the music video sequel.

The reaction amongst the players isn’t quite the same this time around.

Linebacker Derrick Malone and defensive end Tony Washington each expressed his distaste for the fad via Twitter last Friday.

Malone declared the shirts the “dumbest thing (he’d) ever seen” and stressed the importance of taking the season one game at a time. Washington proposed, “We just win this weekend and figure out where we are at the end.”

The possibility of an Alabama-Oregon national title game understandably has Ducks fans as excited as ever. It’s the dream matchup. But let’s not lose sight of how Oregon got to where it is today. The Ducks play host to one of its toughest regular season opponents this Saturday. For the coming week, there should be one focus: We want UCLA.

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