Reflecting upon our beloved Oregon Ducks' 2011 regular season, I'm reminded of the most important factors that drove its success. The spread offense and the zone read, you ask? Those things are no doubt beautiful and potent, but they need enough fuel to function at a high level. The versatility of the defense and the adjustments our players and coaches seem to make just when they need it most? A system constantly in motion needs energy fed to it.

In other words, what our writers and moderators have overlooked in their otherwise excellent recap of our offensive and defensive squads is just how much the training table matters in college football: They neglected to analyze SANDWICHES.

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Anyone interested? We started a discussion in the Quack Fix, but then we got sidetracked talking about McMenamins and beer and I like beer because beer makes me ten times better looking than I normally am and that's saying a lot because do you like beer?

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Hey all.  I lucked into 6 tickets together for Friday's championship game.  Which is super!  And which would be even MORE super if I had five friends, or even one who liked football.  (Doctors are complete dorks for the most part, what can I say?  But at least I'm a football dork.)

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HOOD RIVER, OREGON -- Federal authorities from the Drug Enforcement Agency have seized a Columbia Gorge physician's warehouse, long suspected as a manufacturing site for fake pharmaceuticals sold over the world wide web.

via www.edpillsnews.com

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Life brought me to Eugene, Oregon in 1991.  A directionless young man up to that point, it didn't take me long to fall in love with my adopted home state.  Still, it took me a couple of years before I got wise and enrolled at the University of Oregon.  I had been a lifelong sports fan, so naturally I was drawn to MacArthur Court and Autzen Stadium.  I went to a few games, most memorably the 1993 Civil War, an exercise in pain both on and off the field. Frigid, wet, and drunk is no way to go through a 15-12 Beavers victory.  But still, I felt like I was baptized as a Duck by the 35-degree fog I spent several hours in that night.

So perhaps I should've hated the Beavers from the start.  But soon after that night, I spent a beautiful autumn day in Autzen's student section of a certain 1994 contest in which the Ducks played host to their more storied neighbors to the north.  During a tense, back-and-forth game, I got to hear the increasing grumbles of, "Here we go again" and, "Why is it always these guys?" as Damon Huard lined up under center on first-and-goal from the nine, surely leading the Huskies to yet another victory over poor old us.

And then my sports world got turned on its collective ear.

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You suck.

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I know this isn't going to be a popular sentiment at the moment, but I was expecting this to hurt more.  I've been waiting for the three-day pit in my stomach to recur, the same one I had after watching Dennis Dixon writhing on the ground from a barstool in November '07.  I've been waiting for the stiff neck and shoulder muscles, the feeling that my head weighs twice as much as it actually does, the heavy sighs, the vague chest discomfort, the insomnia.

But it hasn't come yet, and I'm pretty sure that this time around, it isn't coming at all.

What kind of a fan does that make me?

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So, I'm making my yearly man-pilgrimage to the Mecca this week.  That's right, I'm going to Vegas.  And as luck would have it, the biggest game of the season (so far) is on tap for our Ducks.  They're favored by a touchdown against Stanford.

Given last year's performance against Stanford, last week's performance against ASU, and the fact that Stanford has been perhaps the only team in college football to have turned in four dominant wins, the spread seems....well, high.

So I am faced with the classic conundrum that any die hard sports fan and sick gambler knows all too well.  Do I go with my head and bet against my beloved Ducks, praying that they win by three?  Or do I go with my heart and load up on Oregon, confident that they'll beat Harbaugh, Luck, & Co. in Autzen, Where Great Teams Go To Die, by three or four scores?

What say you, oh unbiased AtQ'ers?  Mind you, opting out of gambling on the game is not allowed.  THIS IS VEGAS, after all.

Side note: Have you seen Vegas' new tourism ad campaign?  I AM TOTALLY GOING TO A DANCE CLUB AND GETTING LAID BY A HOT GIRL.  It shouldn't be hard.  And according to their last ad campaign, it stays in Vegas, so my wife will never know.  The television wouldn't lie to me, would it?

Side note #2: I have the same dilemma in my soccer fandom, as Arsenal plays Chelsea this Sunday in the English Premiere League.  But in a weird way that I don't understand, I will have no problem betting the house on favored Chelsea.  My love for Arsenal is a close second fiddle to my love for the Ducks, but this one is a no-brainer.  (WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME?)