Oregon Football is Back

David R.

September 5, 2010 - 2:53 PM

I had to be over at Autzen at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday morning to start getting ready for the season opener against the New Mexico Lobos. This first thing we always do is set up the huge inflatables in the Moshofsky Center and then we all part ways to do different things. I sat at our marketing table for a few hours to give out and posters and schedules for the fall sports to anyone who wanted them. The morning flew by and all of a sudden it was 11:30 and time to make my way down to the field.

It was different to be down on the field when I would normally be getting ready to head into the stadium. The team was down on the field warming up and it was awesome to be so close to the action. Before the game started we had to help out with a few of the standard pre-game activities. I took care of the honorary game captains and made sure that they knew where and when to go. After that I got to go onto the field and kind of regulate among all of the people who had lined up to watch the team run out of the tunnel. We just had to make sure that the fans on the field kept far enough back to not be in danger. When the motorcycle roars onto the field anyone in the way is in trouble.

All of a sudden the motorcycle charged onto the field and the crowd was in a frenzy. The team flew by and the emotions were at an all time high. The other day I heard someone say that there are really only two seasons in America: football season, and waiting for football season. Football season is the best part of the year and it's return every fall always gives me goosebumps just thinking about it. The game began and I couldn't believe I was watching it from the field. It was different not watching from the student section but I had the best seat in the house. What began as a cloudy morning turned in to a barn burner in the Willamette Valley.

Throughout the course of the game I had a few different responsibilities. I helped out with a Chevron promotion that involved launching t-shirts into the student section. I threw the shirts to the launcher and made sure that the scoreboard camera man was watching it so that it could be seen on the large scoreboard.

I also helped out with the Carl's Jr. Lucky Seat Lucky Row promotion. I walked up to the lucky row that was chosen and handed out a free six dollar burger coupon to everyone in the row while someone else gave a bundle of coupons to the one lucky seat winner in the row. It was fun to play a different role and be involved with the in-game festivities at Autzen.

In all of the games I have seen at Autzen this was by far the most outrageous. To say that we blew them out would be an understatement. I have never seen a team win by 72 points. Granted, I think New Mexico only won one game last season, but I just hope that we can throw a similar effort at Tennessee this Saturday in Knoxville.