They still believe in the power of the people in Eugene, Ore.

At the liberal college town’s weekly Saturday market, tie-dye is always in fashion and the '60s are alive, including the ever-present scent of non-medicinal marijuana still blowing in the wind. A little more than a mile back up the Willamette River, a standing-room-only crowd of nearly 60,000 will cram into the University of Oregon’s Autzen Stadium on Saturday night convinced of the masses’ collective ability to influence and shape events. Or at least college football games.
Consider it Autzen Powers.
The Sporting News has called Autzen the sport’s “most intimidating stadium,” a claim supported by record-setting decibel readings at ear splitting levels.
“Per square yard, the loudest stadium in the history of the planet,” longtime ABC sportscaster Keith Jackson called Autzen.
But the true force of Autzen is perhaps best measured by the Richter scale. Oregon fan Tobiah Moshier became convinced of Autzen’s fans’ ability to move heaven and earth while watching Oregon’s controversial 2006 upset of Oklahoma on television in his Eugene apartment.
“I could feel (the stadium) shaking my apartment walls and rattling my dishes from a half a mile away,” Moshier said this week. “Every time the Ducks would score, I could feel the rumble and hear the roars as if I were there.”
This Saturday, Autzen will once again be at college football’s epicenter, playing host to No. 4 USC (6-1 overall, 3-1 Pac-10) and No. 10 Oregon (6-1, 4-0) and the ghosts of upsets past on Halloween night in a game that might not only decide the Rose Bowl race but could also have BCS national championship game ramifications.
“It will be crazy,” said Mike Bellotti, longtime Oregon coach and now the school’s athletic director.
“It will be the place to be in the nation.”
“A huge championship matchup for us,” USC coach Pete Carroll said.
For Ducks fans Saturday’s game has been nothing less than all consuming. In Eugene, the only thing that could possibly be bigger than the Trojans and Ducks would be the Grateful Dead returning to Autzen. With Jerry Garcia.
“The expectancy for the game right now in town is nuts,” said Jonathan Klein, an Oregon fan and Eugene native. “People can’t work. Everyone is obsessed with Saturday’s game.”
For decades the Ducks football program and its fans suffered, often in silence, in the shadows of Oregon’s world famous track program and town’s People’s Republic of Eugene image. But the mindset of both the program and the fans changed Oct. 22, 1994, when Ducks defensive back Kenny Wheaton returned a last-minute interception 97 yards for a touchdown to secure a 31-20 upset of No. 9 Washington that propelled Oregon to its first Rose Bowl in 37 years. The deafening roar that afternoon in Autzen has never really wavered.
“’The Pick’ was the turning point,” said Jay Jones, host of the Lead Block, Oregon’s game-day radio show.
Under Bellotti, Oregon emerged as one of the sport’s elite programs, finishing three seasons this decade in The Associated Press poll’s Top 10, including a No. 2 finish in 2001.
“We’re one of the ’haves’ in college football,” said Chip Kelly, who replaced Bellotti as coach this season. Along the way the Ducks have become a statewide obsession. An obsession bankrolled by Nike co-founder Phil Knight, a former Ducks middle-distance runner.
Of Autzen’s $90 million 2002 state-of-the-art renovation, Knight contributed $30 million, according to The Oregonian, leading some to dub the stadium “The House That Phil Built.” Others have named
Autzen the “House of Loud.” Mainly, Autzen has been a house of blues for opposing teams.
In The Sporting News’ list of Top 10 most intimidating stadiums in college football, Autzen was ranked ahead of, among others, Ben Hill Griffin Stadium (No. 2), Florida’s notorious The Swamp, and Tiger Stadium (No. 4), LSU’s Death Valley.
Earlier this decade the Ducks boasted a nation-leading 23-game winning streak that covered parts of five seasons. Oregon is 3-1 in its past four home games against Top 10 teams. USC, Oklahoma, Michigan, Wisconsin and Utah have all lost at Autzen this decade.
Credit Autzen Powers.
“No crowd usually gets to me,” Cal tailback Jahvid Best said. “Oregon’s the only one that stands out in my mind that got to me.”
Saturday will be the 66th consecutive sellout at Autzen. All four home games this season have drawn beyond capacity crowds, bringing Oregon’s average attendance so far in 2009 to 107.4 percent of Autzen’s 54,000 capacity. But it’s not so much the numbers as it is the noise. Disrupting and intimidating opposing teams has become a source of pride with the Autzen faithful.
“The biggest mistake people made going in there was trying to instigate the crowd and say bring it on, because they brought it on and usually it was followed by three illegal procedure penalties (for opponents) after that,” said Cal coach Jeff Tedford, a former Ducks assistant.
“The difference is Autzen’s (noise) is continuous,” Tedford said. “At most stadiums, there’s ebb and flow of what goes on. When they’re excited, they’re excited, and then they lull for a little bit.
Autzen stays the same no matter what, always, no matter if you get ahead by 14 or 20 or whatever, they stay after it. ... It’s unlike any other stadium.”
Tedford, Bellotti and others maintain the pre-2002 renovation configuration of the stadium actually generated more noise because of the so-called “Autzen bounce,” where the crowd’s roar would reach the top of the stadium and then bounce down. Bellotti said plans for future renovations would trap more crowd noise making the stadium even louder.
Even so, Michigan coach Lloyd Carr called Autzen the loudest stadium he had ever been in after the
Wolverines were upset by Oregon in 2003. Apparently there’s the Big House and then there’s the House of Loud. ESPN recorded sound for the Ducks’ 2007 victory against USC at 127.2 decibels, making it the loudest game in college football history, according to the network. At 110 decibels you cannot hear a person a foot away from you, according to a Penn State study.
“There have been games where I had a headset on with ear muffs over both ears and I still couldn’t hear what the coaches upstairs were saying to me,” Bellotti said.
“Honestly, any other away game I don’t really even hear the crowd,” Cal’s Best said. “Oregon’s the only place where it just really got on my nerves.”
And it’s not just the noise that’s unnerving. “The fans are really close to the field there,” USC safety Taylor Mays said. “And you can really feel there intensity. Really feel it.”
Bellotti describes Oregon’s fans as “passionate.” Rival coaches would use other terms. “It’s like a Roman colosseum,” Moshier said.
“Oregon fans have a reputation as being fairly nasty,” Jones said.
When Rick Neuheisel was coaching at archrival Washington, Ducks fans were known to decorate Oregon urinals with his photograph. And the fans aren’t the only ones wound up. Oregon’s duck mascot was suspended after beating up Houston’s cougar mascot on the Autzen sideline in the 2007 season opener.
Donald isn’t the only Duck who has been in hot water — 125 fans were ejected from Autzen during Oregon’s upset of No. 6 Cal on Sept. 26, 59 for alcohol-related violations. Fans are allowed to leave Autzen at halftime and still return for the second half. There is also a beer garden at the Moshofsky Center, Oregon’s indoor practice facility next to Autzen.
“So you don’t have to go out to do jello shots in your RV,” Jones said. “There’s a countdown clock at the Moshofsky Center at halftime, and the joke is the clock is not to show how much time’s left before the game starts. It’s so you can see how many beers you can down, how inebriated you can get.”
The beer and the profanities promise to flow freely Saturday night, the howl of the ghosts and the unrelenting roar echoing through the night, bouncing across a stadium determined once again to flex Autzen Powers.
“Autzen is a nightmare for opposing teams because of the Oregon fans,” Moshier said, “and we’ll do our damnedest to live up to all the hype surrounding that fact.”