Why is Oregon so good? Why isn't Kentucky?

Last night’s game got me thinking. Why is Oregon in the BCS title game and why is Oregon one of the hottest schools in the country right now? What advantages do they have over Kentucky? After a lot of thought, I have compared Kentucky and Oregon pretty much from top to bottom. And here’s what I’ve found.

While Eugene is a nice college town, it offers very little that Lexington doesn’t. The population of the town is about half as big as Lexington and the size of the actual town itself doesn’t even come close to comparing. Eugene is only 40.54 square miles and Lexington is 285.5 square miles, or seven times bigger. The states of Kentucky and Oregon both have one large city (Louisville, KY and Portland, OR), but Kentucky also has the advantage of being MUCH closer to other large metro areas. For example, it is about a five hour drive from Eugene to Seattle, or Nine hours from Eugene to San Francisco. Conversely, you can get to Milwaukee, Chicago, Nashville, Memphis, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, Akron, Pittsburgh, Raleigh, Charlotte, Atlanta, and Knoxville from Lexington in less than nine hours. Eugene isn’t in the middle of nowhere, but its way more isolated than Lexington. Regardless though, I don’t see Oregon’s location as a major factor to their recent success.

Then there’s the talent level that each state puts out. While I’ll admit that this is a considerable crutch for UK fans to lean on, I wondered how a state as scarcely populated as Oregon could put out the talent to fuel the Ducks to a national championship season. Here’s what I found:
The state of Oregon has three four-star players and three three-star players in the 2011 class according to scout’s database. The state of Kentucky has four four-star players and seven three-star players for this year’s class. That is correct. Oregon is putting out LESS talent than Kentucky is.
To add to that, since 2007, the state of Oregon has produced three five-star players, six four-star players, and eighteen three-star players. The state of Kentucky has produced zero five-star players, ten four-star players, and a whopping forty three-star players. So it’s pretty clear that Oregon isn’t winning with homegrown talent. While this excuse might be a good one against Georgia, Florida, and Alabama, it doesn’t hold water when comparing to Oregon. It’s safe to say we can cross this off as a major factor to their recent success too.

A lot of prospective players want to attend a school with a prestigious academic program. Well, neither school is in the same league as Stanford or Notre Dame. Both schools have their strengths and weaknesses, but are pretty average academic institutions. Of course this also works in their favor as well, as they can get some players admitted that more prestigious universities cannot. I think we can eliminate Oregon’s academic background as a role in the success their having as well.

So what about the prestige of the football program? Oregon clearly doesn’t have the history of a USC or a UCLA, but they’ve been decent for a while. While they’ve won a few PAC-10 championships, they really don’t have the background that a lot of schools have. The success of the program has experienced in recent years overshadows that this was not a very good program before the arrival of Rich Brooks in 1977. Dating back to the 1930’s, the Ducks were much more accustomed to losing records than bowl trips. Prior to 1990, the Ducks had made the same number of bowl games as the Kentucky Wildcats; seven. In fact, the Wildcats were probably the better team prior to the 1980’s despite not really being a powerhouse themselves. Even though the Ducks have been a contender in the PAC-10 for the majority of the last 15 years, the success is still recent. That pretty much eliminates program history from consideration too.

If you tried to guess which team had better attendance this season, you’d surely pick Oregon immediately. The Ducks went undefeated on their way to playing in last night’s championship game and never slowed down all season. If you did guess Oregon, you’d be wrong. Kentucky’s Commonwealth Stadium holds over 67,000 seats compared to Oregon’s Autzen Stadium which can handle just over 54,000 at capacity. So technically, the Ducks should never have as many fans in the stands as the Wildcats. Kentucky’s lowest attended home game this season was the Vanderbilt contest where just 60,391 showed up. Oregon’s highest attended home game this season was 60,017 against Arizona. So even though Kentucky was stumbling through what would eventually be a losing season, they still managed to get the fans in the stands. Clearly fan support isn’t pushing Oregon forward or holding Kentucky back.

When I looked at the playing styles, the two schools couldn’t be more different. The Ducks are in on the current fad and are using a spread option offense where the Wildcats tend to stick to their pro-style attack. The Ducks put up points in bunches and use their smaller offensive players in space to create opportunities to break big plays with their speed. The Wildcats’ offense is built upon a balanced attack and the quarterback lines up under center frequently, whereas Oregon’s QB operates almost exclusively out of the shotgun. While it’s obviously an exciting offense to play in, Kentucky’s pro-style offense is much closer to what prospects will play in if they make it to the NFL. On the other side of the ball, both teams use the prototypical 4-3 defense that utilizes both blitzing. While both defensive schemes are similar, Oregon does tend to be more aggressive than Kentucky. In the end, I do think that Oregon’s exciting, high-octane offense has some draw to it and has played a role in their success. Not a huge role, but it still has had an impact.

Oregon wins the coolness factor hands down. Say what you want about jersey combinations and carbon fiber designed helmets, but they create buzz. Oregon is THE hip school right now because of their non-traditional and unorthodox approach to just about everything. Kentucky won’t even try out black jerseys. The bottom line is that Kentucky doesn’t have room to be a traditionalist school because they really don’t have much tradition. If Florida and Tennessee are willing to spice things up, why aren’t the Cats? If Kentucky’s basketball team can get new uniforms each year with the tradition they have, why not the football Cats? I understand why Penn State, Alabama, Ohio State, Michigan, and Notre Dame are wearing the same uniforms they wore in the 1930’s, but why the Cats? We don’t even wear throwbacks! There’s no spice and no sizzle to the UK program and this is an area that Oregon has really got our number.

Now let’s talk about money. The first thing that is going to jump out of you is that the SEC has a lucrative media deal that the Pac-10 can’t compare to. While Kentucky has done very little to earn the cash, they get their cut of it nonetheless. So that gives Kentucky the edge up immediately. Then look at ticket prices. I’m going to use sideline season tickets as the number for each school because while there are worse and better seats, they should prett much wash each other out. A sideline season ticket package at Kentucky will run you about $272 for the season. Then let’s say that Commonwealth has about 65,000 people on average. That’s approximately $17.68 million dollars coming in to Kentucky from ticket sales. On the flip-side, the same ticket package costs $335 per year. With Autzen Stadium’s capacity of
about 54,000 fans, let’s say an average of 52,000 actually show up and paid for their tickets. So now that makes them somewhere around $17.42 million a year in ticket revenue. While impressive, still pretty close to Kentucky. One place Oregon has some serious backing is from Nike CEO Phil Knight, the school’s most generous booster. While he’s a great ace in the hole, I seriously doubt he is contributing the $17.3 million a year that UK receives from the SEC’s media deal. Oregon is probably in the top 10 schools in the country when it comes to facilities. While they are great for wowing recruits and parents, a lot of them serve alternative purposes too. The medical facilities at Oregon are top notch and better than some seen in hospitals. The player lounges are more impressive than the Craft center at UK or the Wildcat Lodge where the basketball players stay. I know that the facilities themselves don’t win any games, but they help get better players. When you add up all the advantages Oregon has in this category it’s astounding. They bring in less money, but spend considerably more. And that’s really what all this has come down to. Kentucky has so many advantages on Oregon it isn’t even funny, but the Ducks just played for the national championship and the Wildcats finished the season 6-7 and got beaten by a mediocre Pitt team in the midst of serious turmoil. If Kentucky wants to compete at the highest levels, it’s going to come down to spending. The Cats need a recruiting room, they need a new stadium, they need to upgrade Nutter field house, and they need the finances to keep up with the Florida, the Georgia, the Tennessee level schools in the SEC. If Oregon can do more with less, it might be time to start pointing the fingers at the Athletic Department instead of the coaches.

Your move UKAA.

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