Ombrophobia. That’s what I’m sneaking into my recruiting materials if I’m Clay Helton or Jim Mora or Rich Rod - pamphlets on ombrophobia. Ombrophobia is the fear of rain, and if Saturday is what gameday in Eugene is like in the midst of a 5 game losing streak, then the rest of the teams out West better hope the next few crops of recruits come down with serious ombrophobia. Otherwise, something tells me the Ducks will be back to being the leaders of the Pac before you can say “Brady Hoke found his headset.”

When I dreamt up this trip through the tailgates of the Pac-12, I went through draft after draft of the schedule, trying to ensure I’d see as many of the best games of the year as possible. It’s a tough task that requires making predictions about how each squad will fare so as to be able to predict what matchups will actually be the championship defining games. Through the first half of the schedule, most of my gameday selections worked out phenomenally well. We started with an epic Holy War that came down to the Utes making Big Balls Kalani pay for his decision to go for two, we saw Stanford do Stanford things when it appeared like they were still the Rose Bowl resident Stanford, we sailgated into the biggest game at Husky Stadium in 15 years, we saw Wazzu’s Pac-12 train get rolling in front of a sell out crowd in Pullman, and we witnessed the Buffs erase any question of the rise being for real in Boulder. However, then we turned for home with our Pac-12 matchups and I became a little concerned at what we might have in store with 3 straight weeks of the struggling Ducks on deck. I feared what we might find in Eugene with the Ducks going through their worst stretch of football since the mid-80s when Rich Brooks was still roaming the sidelines and “Uncle Phil” was too busy selling the first edition of Jordans to realize the powerhouse he could build in the Pacific Northwest.

As I drove the 100-something miles down the 5 through the dark gray Oregon morning, I was afraid that some Ducks fans might have called it a year. After 8 top-10 finishes in the past 9 seasons, it’d be hard to blame fans who grew tired of the trek to watch a team that had gone winless through the first month of Pac-12 play. But what I found waiting for me in the Emerald City were lively gameday gatherings, one of the loudest crowds of the journey, and neon streaks of Ducks racing to the end zone and lighting up the afternoon sky.

The Walk to Autzen

One of the “problems” with Autzen, is there is very limited parking around the stadium. A majority of the spots surrounding the stadium are reserved for significant donors. So a large portion of the crowd parks back over by campus and then has to walk about a mile to Autzen's gates. However, if you’re not in charge of setting up the tailgate, I can’t imagine a better way to get to gameday (well, with a potential exception of sailgating, sorry Ducks). Frankly, I’m surprised they don’t charge admission for the Walk to Autzen. It’s a picturesque walk that seems more likely to be something out of Fodor’s Guide to Oregon’s Best Hikes, than a gameday ritual performed before spending all day drinking beer, eating hot dogs, and yelling the letter “O” as loud as you can. The Walk literally takes you “over the river and through the woods,” but instead of ending up at Grandma’s house, when you hit the end of the well-worn, leaf-covered path, it’s the green and gold cathedral of Autzen Stadium that peeks out from around the bend.

As soon as I walked across the final little stream that separates the Autzen parking lot from the woodsy island the Walk leads you through, I realized what an idiot I was for my concerns about the Oregon gameday atmosphere. Four hours before kickoff, the surrounding lots were full of green and yellow tents, trailers, RVs, buses, and of course, an ambulance or two. Oregon’s gigantic marching band (they have like 250 kids) was split up throughout the lots to provide some invigorating background noise while fans prepared their brunch tailgates and discussed the merits of their favorite craft brews. And as the tailgaters gregariously clapped along while the band played the fight song, I was hit with the thought that would be playing on repeat in my mind all day long, “Damn, if this is what it’s like when they’re down, I can’t imagine what it’s like when there's something on the line.”

The Fire Duck

Something I didn’t realize until working my way through tailgates at Autzen is how far and wide Oregon fans come from. Eugene is a solid two hours south of Portland, and while its not exactly in the middle of nowhere, Eugene isn't surrounded by the dense city populations like any of the California schools or Oregon's purple-clad neighbor to the north. But it's in part due to this location outside the Portland bubble of Voodoo donuts, food trucks, and recreational marijuana shops, that makes the Ducks the state's team (sorry Beavers). Fans living throughout Oregon's coast and countryside both consider it a treat to have such a special athletics program in their own backyard (even if that is a very metaphorical backyard that spans a few hundred miles.) It seems like at least 80% of the people I met had a two-hour drive to get to Autzen. And some of those fans have been doing that drive for a long, long time.

One of these veteran tailgaters, Steve, has been making the drive from Coos Bay for as long as he can remember. His father played for the Ducks after returning home from fighting in World War II and even after his dad hung up his cleats, football Saturdays in Eugene became an ingratiated part of his family's life. Steve has been coming to Eugene since the Ducks were playing at Hayward Field and was in attendance for the very first game at Autzen. Apparently, back in those days, you were encouraged to bring your own fully-loaded cooler into the game and could sit anywhere you wanted. Before you go off daydreaming about what a wonderful yesteryear this must have been, keep in mind that those Ducks teams only had 2 different uniforms and were pretty fortunate if they could win 40% of their games (the Ducks didn't go bowling even once between 1963 and 1989).

When Steve retired from firefighting 5 years ago, he decided he needed a project to keep him busy. After years of packing his pickup with a grill, table, tent, and chairs, he started to become jealous of the other tailgaters with their RVs and trailers. So what did the former fireman go with? You guessed it, the Fire Duck, a green and gold firetruck specially designed for gameday. While the Fire Duck may not provide the functions of some of the other vehicles we've come across on this journey, it truly is an impressive source of gameday pride (so much so that Steve has already put together another school spirited firetruck for the local high school as well, not sure the tailgate scene at Marshfield High quite matches up to Autzen yet though).

Moustache Nation

While there is nothing like going to support your squad on home turf, where you can revel in well-known traditions, and reminisce on the great memories made while sitting in your same seats, there is something special about traveling to see your team on the road. Few people understand this majesty as well as Jay of ASU’s Moustache Nation.

I first met up with Moustache Nation in Tempe and was impressed with not only their moustaches, but their incredible sense of humor about the Sun Devils’ place in college football lore and pure enjoyment of everything gameday has to offer. After the visit, I knew I had to check out the main event in Eugene, and man, do these guys go all out. To be a member of the Nation, you have to pay your annual dues, which all go towards a slush fund to throw the best possible tailgate the select away game has to offer. On this Autzen Saturday, Moustache Nation took over their own 50 square yard patch of grass with a full pop-up bar be tended by some Eugene's finest bartenders, Pacific Northwest grillmasters taking care of the food behind the grill, and their very own set of port-o-pottys for which they brought along their own bath mat (a U of A flag which may or may not have previously resided in an unsuspecting Eugene watering hole).

While not everyone may be entertained by the Nation's goal of growing the most hideous facial hair possible or choice of jorts for tailgate attire, you have to respect the way these ridiculous traditions have brought together this disconnected group who only share 2 things in common: a love for the Sun Devils and a connection to Jay. This year, they had over 90 guys make the trip from all over the country, and it was hilarious to watch these guys network with one another while passing back and forth a bottle of Black Velvet and moving from discussions about moustache growing tips to recommendations on how to best pitch VCs. As one of the guys explained it to me, "You can't stay in college forever, but thanks to this we all get to make the trip back to those days at least one Saturday a year." He's got a point, isn't that the best part of college: making new friends and convincing those new friends to make some questionable decisions while at the same time sharing knowledge and encouraging them to pursue their dreams while passing back and forth plastic bottles of Safeway's finest bottom-shelf whiskey.

Flipgate

Flipgate is the brainchild of two self-described “crazy kids from Oregon” who had an immense love for every aspect of tailgating at Autzen, minus the hour and a half it took them to setup and tear down their tailgate. When you build out a serious tailgate with all the essentials: TVs, grills, tables, tents, and games, you have to add quite a bit of time into your schedule to get everything set up. Well, at some point, the Flipgate guys, aka the Flipfathers, decided that they had had enough and were going to put together the greatest tailgate that could possibly be set up in less time than it takes you to get a quote from Geico (or at least as I’m led to believe by their commercials).

So when the offseason came, these guys went out and bought a bus. But the purchase of the bus wasn’t the solution as much as the start. The Flipfathers basically did what MTV’s Pimp My Ride claimed to do and converted a simple bus into a fully loaded tailgate machine complete with a keycard-activated keg, fully loaded sound and TV, and in classic Oregon fashion, bright neon lights to set the mood. The Flipfathers carefully designed every element of the bus and associated tents to be built to exact specifications that woud allow the whole tailgate to be set-up and torn down in less than 15 minutes, therefore leaving them the maxium amount of time to savor the joys of Oregon gamedays. And from the The Walk to the tailgates to the stroll through the intergalactic space station that is the Ducks training facility (thanks Uncle Phil!) to the time spent in the stands or refreshing inside the Mo at half, it's easy to see why you wouldn't want to waste one unnecessary minute on tailgate set-up or cleanup when the awe of Autzen is there surrounding you.

The Greatest Duck

I actually thought I saw Marcus Mariota just 15 feet in front of me as I was crossing the Williamette River, and in my defense, it did make some sense given the fact that the Titans had played on Thursday night, and the guy I thought was Marcus Mariota was the only Ducks fan I passed on the whole walk over that was not actually wearing a Marcus Mariota jersey. Ducks fans wear Mariota jerseys on gameday the same way girls wear lululemon pants to SoulCycle - it’s basically the only thing you can wear if you want to be taken seriously. In a great example of how beloved Mariota is with the Oregon faithful, Oregon has already named the brand new 30,000 square-foot “sports performance center” after him despite his playing days being a recent enough memory that he’s still playing on his rookie contract in the NFL. (However, it should be noted that Oregon has some questionable facility naming standards considering the Ducks play on Rich Brooks Field in honor of their former coach who won a nearly-mediocre 45% of his games at Oregon. I realize Oregon hasn't always been a powerhouse, but it's not like they were Kansas or something before this guy showed up.)

While some might think naming a building after such a recent alum is just another chance for Oregon to showcase their willingness to be non-traditional, there is more to it in this case. There have been some great Ducks throughout history, and as I said, Marcus is still just going through his NFL growing pains, but given how incredibly fun he was to watch terrorize the Pac-12 and the popular, yet somehow arguably objective opinion that he "might just be the best human there is," (move over Tebow!) I'm going to go ahead and predict right now that nobody's ever going to be interested in substituting in another name on that building, no matter how many Heisman winners or Fortune 500 founders the future holds for the Ducks.

The Zoo

I have no idea if anyone calls it the Autzen Zoo anymore, but that's what is was called on EA Sports NCAA Football 2005, and let's be honest EA Sports is responsible for at least 20% of knowledge sports fans my age have. In NCAA '05, the Autzen Zoo was one of the "Toughest Places to Play" and the PlayStation controller would fervently shake whenever you were trying to convert a 3rd down against the Ducks. Ever since those days, I always wanted to see if that's what Autzen is really like.

It is.

Autzen Stadium doesn't overwhelm you with its size. The ends and edges of the bowl don't climb that high into the sky and the place only holds 54,000. However, I'm not sure if it is something in the Pacific Northwest water (it's pretty damn loud at UW, too) or the veteran experience these fans have from all the big games that have rolled through Eugene in the past decade, but the place is LOUD. And keep in mind this was a match up between teams entering the game with a combined Pac-12 record of 2-7 and no sort of bitter rivalry between them. The neon-tinted crowd stayed after it all day, not just for the first few drives. The fans were on their feet and yelling their hearts out from the opening kick to Royce Freeman's "cherry-on-top" TD run to seal up the W late in the 4th quarter. It was by far the most impressive showing of support for a 2-5 team you're going to see anywhere in the conference.

Quick Hits:

Grown Men in Eye Black - If you are a male over 10 years-old, you shouldn't wear eye black. I saw at least 6 dudes wearing eye black with the "O" emblem at Autzen, unless Coach Helfrich stopped by their tailgate before the game and told them he might be in need of a punt returner, there is absolutely no reason why friends should ever allow friends to do this to themselves. And don't try to tell me it was acceptable on Halloween weekend, these guys would have been rocking the eye black if the game was played in a Jehovah's Witnesses colony, the holiday had nothing to do with it.

Quarter Breaks - This isn't something I usually put any gameday thought into, but Autzen certainly went 3-for-3 on their quarter break entertainment. At the end of the first, they play this completely cheesy "I left my heart in Oregon" video filled with highlights from all eras of Ducks football. At least I want to chalk it up as being cheesy, but I have to admit it's phenomenally well done and when a majority of the crowd starts singing along it's near goosebump-inducing even for a non Ducks fan. At halftime, fans can hit "the Mo," the gigantic fieldhouse/Ducks practice facility that is filled with live music, good beer, and plenty of space to stay dry during halftime. And before the 4th quarter gets started at Autzen, the Duck faithful engage in the greatest of wedding traditions and boogie on down to "Shout!" It's not exactly as intimidating as Jump Around at Camp Randall, but a pretty creative way to keep the energy up between quarters.

Uh-Oh - I said it once and I'll say it again, if this is what it looks like at Oregon during a downtime, it's pretty clear the downtimes won't be lasting very long. I used to think that Oregon's whole recruting pitch was come enjoy arguably the best facilities in all of college football and look good while doing it in our unlimited amounts of awesome Nike gear. However, its pretty clear the experience runs much deeper than that. The Autzen gameday environment is electric from start to finish, awesome uniforms, incredible facilities, and a rocking crowd in Oregon's second largest city that is still small enough to be a college town, it's pretty clear what makes playing for the Ducks so desirable. However, as I walked back over the Williamette River with a throng of Ducks fans enjoying the breathtaking dusk view, I felt something that seemed like hope hit me on top of the head, and as I clenched up with the few drops of rain, the Bruin fan in me was reminded, ombrophobia, there's always ombrophobia.