The #2 ranked Oregon Ducks lost to the Arizona Wildcats tonight, 34-24, becoming the fifth #2 team to fall during this topsy-turvy college football season. As I watched the game unfold, I was amazed by how delicate the psyche of a group of strong, fast, fine-tuned young men can be.

Midway through the first quarter, after scoring easily on their first drive and having a potential touchdown pass smack a receiver in the chest, bounce in the air and be intercepted, Oregon was on the move once again. Their quarterback, senior Dennis Dixon, was effortlessly leading the team down the field, showing a nationwide audience why he should be a front-runner for the Heisman trophy. Their amazingly tacky uniforms aside (thanks, Nike!), watching this young man run Oregon’s offense to perfection was a thing of beauty. It has been all season. All of a sudden, it came to a abrupt halt. While scrambling out of the pocket and attempting to juke a defender, Dixon’s left knee, the same knee he had sprained only two weeks ago, buckled and he crashed to turf untouched.

The home crowd roared, then fell immediately silent. They knew instinctively that highly competitive athletes known for violent collisions don’t fall down for no good reason.

Meanwhile, sitting in my living room, my heart immediately sank. Watching the slow-motion replays only confirmed what I thought I had saw. Dennis Dixon’s season is most likely over. He either tore a ligament in his knee or he twisted it so badly as to effectively end his season. I knew this because it had happened to me.

No, I didn’t fall to injury during a nationally televised college football game, I tore my ACL(Anterior Cruciate Ligament) playing intramural flag football. Still, both Dixon and I weren’t touched when we were hurt, so I have that in my favor.

This was seven years ago and it required surgery and extensive rehab. Granted, I was never a top-level college athlete, but a ligament tear is a ligament tear and those that have had it happen to them instinctively know when they see it happen to someone else. But, that’s not the point of this post.

At the time that Dennis Dixon went down with his injury, Oregon was leading, 8-7. As I had said earlier, they had already driven down the field twice without trouble and were heading for another possible touchdown. Instead, their leader went down with what appeared to be a bad injury and the entire team deflated. They wound up kicking a field goal. Over the next quarter and a half, they were outscored 24-3. By halftime, the game was over.

Now, Oregon was the #2 team in the country. Arizona was not ranked. Hell, they didn’t even have a winning record. But surely Oregon’s talent didn’t end with Dennis Dixon. One player does not make an entire team. Right?

Well, that’s what I thought.

After halftime, the Ducks defense rose up and held Arizona to only 3 points the entire second half. Their offense continued to struggle against the Wildcat’s stout defense, but something fundamentally changed during halftime. Dennis Dixon returned to the sideline and started cheering on his teammates.

That young man is the heart and soul of his team. When they saw him go down with such a demoralizing injury, they all panicked. They didn’t know what to do. Their seemingly invincible leader was on the sidelines, being comforted by his father and crying at his misfortune and his loss sucked all the strength and confidence out of his team. And why shouldn’t it? You remember the years between 18 and 22, I hope. You know what an emotional roller-coaster that time was in your life. Tremendous highs and bottomless lows. In college football, it’s magnified, but I’ve never seen it as stark as this.

Oregon’s emotional and physical leader succumbed to an injury and to his emotions and his entire team responded in kind. Once he regained his composure and showed his team that not all was lost, that he would stand with them, injury or not, their entire demeanor changed. They started flying around the field, making plays and playing with emotion. Their psyche, while not fixed entirely, was very much soothed.

Now, I’ve been watching college football for over 17 years and I don’t ever remember seeing such a stark contrast in an entire team’s demeanor over the course of a single game. I guess it just goes to show that, under all those pads and muscles and brightly-colored uniforms, college football players are just as fragile as you or I.