A mallard was found spray-painted and with his legs bound with duck duct tape at a community college in Albany, Ore, before Thursday's de facto Pac-10 title game. I figure it's OSU students, because Albany is mere miles from Corvallis, and I don't think the kids from Linn-Benton Community College get particularly wound up over the Civil War game.

The duck was taken to a wildlife rehab center, where he might be a long-term resident. Get ready to awwww:

Jeff Picton, executive director of the nonprofit wildlife rehabilitation center near Lewisburg, said Friday the animal was doing OK but could not be released because the paint had destroyed the water-repellent qualities of its feathers. It would not be able to swim.

They'll hang on to the duck until the spring, when hopefully it will molt and grow new, useful feathers.

Remember, folks. Vandalizing a statue of your rival's mascot: okay, even encouraged. Vandalizing an actual animal: not acceptable. This duck's not the one who ran for 166 yards against your team.

Spray-Painted Mallard To Stay At Wildlife Center [Albany Democrat-Herald]

Blount only got nine carries last night—probably because he missed 10 games this season after punching Boise State's Byron Hout on opening night—but his 12-yard TD was a huge moment in the Ducks comeback win over Oregon State, in his final home game. Now he's literally being lauded with roses. That's quite a year.

I think maybe that Blount has it figured out. Why destroy your body for 12 grueling games, when you can get yourself suspended, show up to rescue your team at the last possible moment, still get to play in the Rose Bowl, and save your knee ligaments for the NFL Combine. He's crazy, all right. Crazy like a duck.

Let's watch that punch again, huh? Just for old time's sake....

Honorable Mention: Adrian Peterson, for proving that his BMW can travel 109 m.p.h. Yes, he was in a 55-m.p.h. zone, but his car his made out of that Nike snake skin stuff, so he was protected.

•Many players were reportedly laughing as they left a team meeting where they were told of Mark Mangino's resignation. Perhaps they had also been sent this photo of an unknown flyer with a familiar waistline and hairline. (Thanks to Dr. Mongoose for the pic. Update)

•In other, more successful college football news, Oregon is heading to the Rose Bowl for the first time since 1995, where they'll face Ohio State. The automatic bid system seems like a good idea until you get a matchup of two fairly decent teams emerging from horrible conferences.

•Days after a sliding clinic with Joe Girardi, Mark Sanchez injures his knee while sliding. It doesn't matter, because the Bills and the Bills, and the Jets keep their playoff hopes alive. Thankfully, the media's collective knees are fine, so they'll be able to cover Sanchez's poise with their customary reverence.

•The revolving doors at third in Philly and short in Boston bring in their newest warm bodies; Placido Polanco to the Phillies and Marco Scutaro to the Red Sox. We're one Orlando Cabrera short of a Three Tenors of Utility Infielders.

•A day after signing Billy Wagner, the Braves add Takashi Saito. I like it. You want to recreate Atlanta's dominant pitching of the turn of the century? Sign guys who were at their most effective back then.

•Albert Pujols launched a center for adults with Down syndrome. At this point, he's the only unimpeachable athlete we have left. I will now ignore media coverage for the next ten years to preserve this image of him.

•••••

Friday. Rock.

"I Love My Ducks" [@Yahoo!7 Video, via Duck Sports News via EDSBS]

•Fed up with the Ducks' — and LeGarrette Blount's — performance on opening night, one Oregon alumnus sent coach Chip Kelly an invoice for his ticket and travel expenses. He received a personal check from Kelly for $439. Getting a refund for an awful product? I hope Jerry Jones has $1.3 billion in his checking account.

•Do you know there are 1-year-old children who've never seen the Yankees make the playoffs? New York rectified that, clinching at least a wild card spot with a 6-5 win in Anaheim. And if Derek Jeter is so valuable to his team, why couldn't he will them to the playoffs last year without Sabathia and Teixeira?

•The dreaded swine flu is running rampant through Gainesville; six more Gator players and an assistant coach have come down with H1N1. Expect Tebow to lay his hands on them, and cast the disease out into a herd of pigs, who drown themselves in the Galilee.

•Zack Greinke shut down the Red Sox, and somehow lowered his ERA. Anyone who says he doesn't deserve the Cy Young should be dragged out into the street and shot. He's never going to have a chance to win anything ever again.

•Curt Schilling announced on "Joe Buck Live" that he won't run for Massachusetts' vacant Senate seat. Expect him to show up on election day with a bloody petition that puts him on the ballot.

•Perhaps after seeing Kim Clijsters win the US Open, former no. 1 Justine Henin will be making her return to tennis. She's missing something though. If only she had read every single goddamn article about Clijsters she would know that having a baby during her time off was a key component of her comeback.

•Thanks to SportsbyBrooks for bringing this to our attention: in America, crazy drunken fans run across the field. In Canada, they climb the goalposts. I believe that's called a rouge and is worth 2½ points.

Congratulations to the American Football Coaches Association for dreaming up the brilliant PR gambit known as Sportsmanship Weekend. Getting two football teams who do not like each other to shake hands before the game really taught everyone a valuable lesson about the importance of fair play and respecting your opponent. Blount also wiped that idea right off the map, but let's not forget that it was Hout's equally egregious display of poor sportsmanship that sparked last night's incident.

As Hout passed Blount in the post-game celebration he pointed at Blount, clearly said something insulting, and then slapped him on the shoulder. The reason he didn't see the punch coming was because his own coach was pulling him aside to politely point out that he was being a jackass. Not to sound like a third-grader, but he started it and if anyone wants to cry about the need to eliminate this scourge from the game then that does matter.

Does that excuse Blount at all? No way. You've got be to bigger than that, especially later on when it was the fans who were doing the taunting. (Fans who should probably have kept their mouth shut too. Blount would have ripped them in half if they didn't have security to protect them.) He should be suspended for multiple games, but if Hout gets off with nothing but a sore jaw that'll be too bad.

What does everyone else think?

The Oregonian

The Ducks running back should be arrested and charged with assault today for slugging Hout, who wasn't even looking. Also, Blount should be served up by first-year head coach Chip Kelly as a reminder of everything the program should never become. It was cheap. It was embarrassing. It was disgusting.

Sports Pros(e)

Blount, who's own coaches say he has a lot of maturing to do and was suspended once in pre-season practice already, put the key quote on the board, saying Oregon owed Boise State an "ass-whoopin' " after the Ducks 37-32 upset lost last season in Boise. Unfortunately for Blount, he forgot to open up his can in the 19-8 loss.

Bleacher Report

I have been embarrassed by happenings at the Oregon athletic department before. Dismissals, the lack of action after Luke Bellotti was arrested for drunk driving, Dante Rosario kicking a Cal player in the head and not being punished, you name it. The kinds of things that happen to every college football team and I never like, especially when it happens to my team. But this was so public, so egregious, and showed such a lack of maturity that I simply feel like all my Ducks' paraphernalia needs a good washing.

Willamette Week

Is this the end of the white jerseys?

Wiz of Odds

This last video was posted before the game by something called the Armenian Demon. After Thursday's loss, his whereabouts are unknown.

Every Day Should Be Saturday

He's as completely suspended as Byron Hout was completely bitchmade by Blount's sucker punch. Unsportsmanlike? Oh, certainly. Dirty? Completely, yes, but shit, would you so much as step on Blount's shadow without his permission now? Somewhere he and Ron Artest are walking through a suburban mall right now punching people in the face randomly and talking about how awesome smoothies are.

I suppose that's one way to put it. [Statesman Journal, via The Rookies]

This feathery creation was worn Saturday against Arizona and produced a 55-45 victory, so there's that. But the Victoria Times is not impressed, calling Oregon's many color schemes "uniform ADD." And one of their commenters opined: "If there is a part of the duck to emphasize, it's not the delicate wings on the shoulder pads. Maybe the beak? Or the flipper feet?"

The Oregon Ducks Continue To Annoy [The Victoria Times]

A letter in the March 24 edition of Sports Illustrated reads:

"I was shocked to see, in a photo of the Oregon student section, my son partaking in the harassment of UCLA's Kevin Love. When he came home the following weekend, his car was taken away and he headed back to school on a bus. I am embarrassed and wish to apologize to Kevin and his family." — Armando Navarro, Clackamas, Ore.

And they say that print media is dead.

Here's the SI story in question.

And, following below are some other potential bus customers that SI missed. You kids should be ashamed of yourselves!

Thanks For The Bus Ride, Sports Illustrated! [theWhammy]

MISSISSIPPI STATE BULLDOGS

1. Erick Dampier, Basketball Guru. Mississippi State's best postseason performance came in 1996. (Insert high-larious joke about Dishwalla, the movie "Bulletproof," or Bob Dole here) The Bulldogs won the SEC tournament by surprising eventual national champ Kentucky in the conference finals. They then went on to reach the Final Four in the NCAA's, defeating #1 seed UConn and #2 seed Cincinnati before losing to Syracuse in the semifinals. The team was led by center Erick Dampier, also known as "Damp" or "Contract Year," guard Darryl Wilson, and halfway possessive forward Dontae' Jones. Jones, a junior college transfer, risked being ineligible before the season, but, through the miracles of big-time college basketball, managed to pass thirty-six (freaking! and totally legitimate!) hours of coursework over the summer in order to qualify. Also, Dampier visited my middle school one time to recruit participants for some skills camp he was running, and he had, like, the biggest head I've ever seen on anyone ever.

2. Just Not Ready For a Commitment. In the late 90's and early aughts, lots of high school basketball players skipped college and went directly to the NBA. It's doubtful that any college program was a bigger loser as a result of this than Mississippi State. Over the years, the Bulldogs lost out on three top players—Jonathan Bender, Travis Outlaw and Monta Ellis—all of whom committed to the Bulldogs
before telling MSU, "It's been real, baby girl, but I'm not ready for a 'relationship' relationship." On the flipside, State might have been the biggest beneficiary of the 2003 Dave Bliss-Baylor Scandalgate Funktacular, as it freed Lawrence Roberts to transfer to State without having to sit out a year. He subsequently won the SEC Player of the Year Award and the hearts of Bulldog fans everywhere.

3. The "Voice of the Bulldogs." Jack Cristil has been the play-by-play announcer for State basketball games since 1957, and for football games since 1953. He started calling games so long ago, it was the Stone Age. No, but seriously, it wasn't the Stone Age...it was the Ice Age! No, really, it was the Stone Age. Cristil got his start before the era of sportsertainment, as evidenced by the fact that, oh, I don't know, listening to his broadcasts is actually enjoyable. The man in old school in the best sense. Upon his hiring, then-AD Dudy Noble told him, "Boy, here's what I want you to do. You tell that radio audience what the score is, who's got the ball and how much time is left and you cut out the bullshit." Where, oh where, is that voice of reason when our hype-machine-lanced sports world needs it most? — David Newman

OREGON DUCKS

1. Should of Just Been a Duck. The Oregon student section, or The Pit Crew, was awesome enough to get mentioned (with an accompanying picture) in Sports Illustrated as one of the nastiest, most verbally abusive, over-the-line student sections in the country. Oh wait, not so awesome. When Portland native Kevin Love made his way up to Eugene in January, The Pit Crew exacted their revenge on his going to UCLA instead of Oregon (where daddy Stan played with Ernie Kent) by posting his cell phone number on Facebook (leading to death threats), throwing things at his family in the stands (including his Beach Boy uncle, Mike Love) and chanting things about Kevin Love that I won't get into here. Ok fine, they insinuated that he enjoys the peen.

2. The Phil Knight Dome. McArthur Court has been around for 80ish years and is falling apart. Beyond the clear structural issues, it's apparently partially overrun with insects and features what are probably the least appealing locker rooms and press areas in the country. Will Phil Knight stand for that any longer? No, no he won't. Plans are now all but finalized, thanks in part to Uncle Phil donating, you know, like a hundred million dollars to the Duck Athletic Fund. Scheduled to open in 2010ish, the new arena, which will be built on land now occupied by a bread factory next to campus, will be the most expensive ($200m) college arena ever built. There's talk of it housing two playing areas, one regular 12,500 seater and a smaller gym for volleyball and other miscellaneous activities. As far as anyone can tell what $200 million buys you arena-wise, the mockup looks like some sort of cross between the Death Star and a Brita Water Filter.

3. Fun Duck Facts. Ray Schafer, an Alaskan 7-footer, is married and has his wife rebound for him when he practices alone in the arena at night ... Freshman PG Kamryn Brown hurt himself playing in a pick-up game at the Rec Center in the middle of the season ... Aaron Brooks was really good last year, and they're not as good without him ... Oregon got new uniforms midway through the season (blacks, yellows, greens, and whites) and the names are on the backs are printed in same color as the jerseys themselves ... Since growing a beard for the season, Maarty Leunen has been the best and most consistent player for the Ducks ... Freshman SF Drew Viney looks like he's 14 years old ... Senior PF Mitch Platt looks really funny and pale in one of those skin-tight Nike under-jersey shirts. — Dan Rubenstein

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2. The Phil Knight Dome. McArthur Court has been around for 80ish years and is falling apart. Beyond the clear structural issues, it's apparently partially overrun with insects and features what are probably the least appealing locker rooms and press areas in the country. Will Phil Knight stand for that any longer? No, no he won't. Plans are now all but finalized, thanks in part to Uncle Phil donating, you know, like a hundred million dollars to the Duck Athletic Fund. Scheduled to open in 2010ish, the new arena, which will be built on land now occupied by a bread factory next to campus, will be the most expensive ($200m) college arena ever built. There's talk of it housing two playing areas, one regular 12,500 seater and a smaller gym for volleyball and other miscellaneous activities. As far as anyone can tell what $200 million buys you arena-wise, the mockup looks like some sort of cross between the Death Star and a Brita Water Filter.

3. Fun Duck Facts. Ray Schafer, an Alaskan 7-footer, is married and has his wife rebound for him when he practices alone in the arena at night ... Freshman PG Kamryn Brown hurt himself playing in a pick-up game at the Rec Center in the middle of the season ... Aaron Brooks was really good last year, and they're not as good without him ... Oregon got new uniforms midway through the season (blacks, yellows, greens, and whites) and the names are on the backs are printed in same color as the jerseys themselves ... Since growing a beard for the season, Maarty Leunen has been the best and most consistent player for the Ducks ... Freshman SF Drew Viney looks like he's 14 years old ... Senior PF Mitch Platt looks really funny and pale in one of those skin-tight Nike under-jersey shirts. — Dan Rubenstein

It has been an awfully difficult week for Oregon. In the span of three hours last Thursday, the Ducks lost a clear BCS spot and a Heisman Trophy with the injury to Dennis Dixon, and the state even suffered a minor earthquake just off its coast. The good news? Greg Oden's mending!

St. Mary's Upsets Oregon In Latest Ducks Disaster [Sports By Brooks]
St. Mary's Will Upset Oregon [The Fanhouse]

So, how does the shuffle play out? Well, assuming LSU doesn't lose in the SEC title game, they're in. Which means the other BCS slot should be filled by whoever escapes the Big 12 scrum. If it's Missouri, that could also mean Chase Daniel moves into the Heisman leader; if it's not, it's Tebow fever. For all the talk of rivalry week starting tomorrow, the real college football news came last night. Chaos is fun.

Oregon Falls At Arizona [Rivals.com]

Yep, the Heisman Trophy candidate is also just taking one class this year: Billiards.

As with Leinart, we don't see anything wrong with this: The reason Dixon is only taking one class is because he's already set to graduate with a degree in sociology. (Because, of course, the only reason to play college football is to get a degree.) The only downside is that, unlike Leinart, Dixon is unlikely to sleep with his class partners. Which might be for the best, actually.

Oregon QB Has A Lot Of Balls [Sports By Brooks]

• LSU 41, Alabama 34 — Ah, this was a big win for the Tigers in Tuscaloosa. I'm sure that from here on out, people will finally stop questioning Les Miles as a legitimate coach. Yep. No doubt about it.

• Navy 46, Notre Dame 44 — Bread cost a nickel. Gas cost a quarter. Hippie bone marrow was free — you could just go up to them when they were asleep and siphon it through a tube. This was our world when Navy last beat Notre Dame.

Ram Vela. Remember that name. One day, you'll read about how he singlehandedly brought down a fortress of Middle Eastern terrorists or victoriously wrestled down a pod of super intelligent dolphins set out to destroy our way of life. Vela lept a ND defender and sacked quarterback Evan Sharpley in the same motion during an Irish fourth quarter drive.

• Arkansas 48, South Carolina 36 — "Hi, I'm Darren McFadden. You may remember me from such college football seasons as 2006 and ... well, just 2006." McFadden ran for 323 yards, passed for a touchdown, and I'm fairly certain he nursed a dying foal back into good health. Some may assert he still has a chance to win the Heisman, but Colt Brennan killed an octopus in the offseason. Still too close to call.

(Photo straight from the Arizona Republic)

Malik Hairston fouled out at 3:54, Marty Leunen fouled out with 1:24 left, Joevan Catron fouled out with :47 left, and Aaron Brooks played most of the second half with four fouls. It's not that Oregon played poorly — well, except for Tajuan Porter, whose jumpshots, for most of the game, seemed to be allergic to the net — they just didn't have enough to mess with Florida. Porter was 2-12 from the floor and was called for a travel on one of Oregon's last opportunities with under 9 seconds to play. Poor little guy.

Brooks finished with 27 for Oregon, and game MVP Lee Humphrey racked up 23 for Florida. Joakim Noah chipped in 14 points and 13 boards for the Gators, too.

It sets up a UCLA/Florida Final Four rematch. The other Final Four game will be Ohio State vs. either Carolina or Georgetown, which is starting any second now.

Oregon couldn't make them pay and put them in a hole, though. They never opened up much of a lead, and at about the 7:00 mark, Florida went on a mini-run and took the lead, which they have yet to relinquish. They take a 40-38 lead to the half.

While James Brown and Len Elmore try to get a handle on the magical ability of Lee Humphrey's jumpshot to obliterate nylon, Aaron Brooks has 14 for Oregon, Humphrey has 14 for Florida, and Oregon's Malik Hairston, described by James Brown as having a "nice package down low," and I couldn't agree more, has 12. Florida's trio of Noah, Horford and Brewer has combined for 12. And yet, Florida leads.

Both Clark Kellog and Seth Davis like Florida, if that means anything to you (which it absolutely shouldn't). It should be a fun team to watch, though, between Florida's dominant frontcourt, and the Ducks' explosive backcourt.

The weather is beautiful in most of the country ... the perfect day to park yourself in front of a television and forget about sunshine for a little while. You wouldn't want to miss it if the Gators win, and Joakim Noah starts grinding on Len Elmore.