"We felt it would be like a heavyweight championship fight," Kiffin said. "There would be huge blows dealt dealt throughout the day. We talked at length about how we had to make plays, get back to the sidelines, take a deep breath in-between rounds, go back and do it again."
     Even three 17-point deficits failed to stagger the 18th-ranked Trojans.
     "They went up big but we came back and kept fighting," running back Curtis McNeal said. "When we were down 10, we were like, 'Oh, we're really in it now." We had a shot even when we were down at the end of the game."
     Yet the failure to land three punches in the first half proved pivotal. The first opportunity came on the USC's first possession, when the Trojans had to settle for Andre Haidari's 39-yard field goal on forth-and-4 at the Ducks' 22-yard line.

     This passage from the Eugene Register-Guard describes the defeat of the Trojans to the Ducks. In this passage, the author talks a lot about the Trojans and how they were confident and felt like they were in the game the whole time. He begins with a fitting analogy of a boxing match, describing it as a fight. This description was not far off. The Ducks vs. the Trojans could be described as an intense battle with an obvious victor. He continues the analogy later on by saying, "the failure to land three punches in the first half...."
     The author also talked to some of the players on the losing team. They all had the same idea of how the game went. They all seemed to think they had a chance, even when behind the entire game. It just seemed sad that the team would allow themselves to think that they ever could have won the game. The worst part of it, is that the coach led them to believe this fallacy. Now, I understand the coaches position, having to keep the teams spirit up. However, they all knew they would never win, so it just seemed pointless to get their hopes up.