OT: Is Oregon a football school?

[OregonFan4Life]

I listened to the Dan Patrick show today like I usually do, and I thought with Oregon's dominating win there'd be a little bit of discussion about Oregon, but there was about none besides mentioning they won. There was a lot of talk about the Big Ten and USC, and even some about Oregon State and ironically Justin Herbert got more talk than the men's basketball team. In the beginning they talked about how football schools are doing well in the NCAA tourney and when listing the teams they mentioned Oregon. This just struck me and surprised me a bit, the media really does view Oregon as a football school despite their success with basketball (especially recently). Heck, I bet the media would view Oregon as a women's basketball school before men's basketball because of Sabrina. Does this surprise anybody else as much?

This got me thinking, hypothetically, if Bol never got injured, continued to be a star all year, and if Oregon had a good run in the tourney and he went top 3 in the draft, would Oregon suddenly be viewed more as a basketball school? Would that one star player alone have changed the perception of Oregon basketball? Besides winning a title, what would it take for the media to see Oregon basketball in a similar light to Oregon football?

Mods, feel free to move this wherever, wasn't sure where to post this.

[lukeyrid13]

I think two things are holding the Bball team back

1. Lack of fan support. Our own fans are lukewarm about our basketball team and as nice as Matthew Knight Arena is, the feel of the Pit was more college like

2. Lack of title/championship appearances. We have seen a lot of success getting to the sweet 16 almost annually; however, we have just the 1 final 4 appearance. Butler, Illinois-Chicago, George Mason, South Carolina etc all have similar track records over the past decade.

Clemson is now considered a blue blood in football, and that took 4 playoff appearances and 2 titles to get there. I think we would need to see the same/similar for basketball. Be a top 5-10 team for 5+ years and multiple title game appearances

[Phalanx]

So, Oregon is a track school then?

[StevensTechU]

I think there's a mindset that exists that you can only be one. Perhaps it's because nobody is actually elite at both. With two title game appearances in FB versus one Final Four, it stands that Oregon would be a football school if you have to pick, but I would say that it's really dumb that it has to be one or the other.

[greenyellow]

The amount of attention football gets over basketball also plays a big role in most schools being known for football even though they've got excellent basketball and/or other sports programs. I guess you really have to consider what sport comes to mind for the majority of people when you just say the school's name. With Oregon, I can easily see football coming up before basketball because of how much they're known for their various uniforms, high-octane offenses, or the loudness of Autzen. I would think that track and field would also rank pretty highly in awareness for most people, especially if they know Nike's ties to the program.

[GoDucksTroll]

Oregon is a football school. I think if you polled 100 college basketball fans that would be the answer from 95% of them. Even if Jordan Bell got those rebounds against UNC and they won the title, and made another Final Four, the majority would still say football school.

Florida was elite at both: 2006 and 07 titles in basketball and 2006 and 08 in football and it was still considered a football school.

The only way to be a basketball school is to be really good at basketball while being awful at football for a long time. If you’re elite at both, even if basketball is better, you’ll be a football school because of how much more popular and important it is.

[GrandpaDuck]

It's like scholarships, if an athlete plays both sports his scholarship counts against football. By NCAA rules he is a football player playing basketball or track no matter which sport he is better at (See Devon Allen).

The rule with few exceptions is that to be considered a basketball school, you must have no football (Gonzaga, Georgetown, Villanova) or if you do have a football team it has to be perennially pathetic compared to the basketball team (Duke, Kansas, Kentucky etc).

I think Oregon should be considered a Spring Sports school. Top 25 (often Top 10) Track, MBB, WBB, WVB, Softball all going on at once almost every year. That doesn't even include a top of conference Spring football game, golf, a good tennis program and rising W soccer and baseball. Unfortunately the "Spring Sports school" tag exists only in my mind.