A day to look good and look ahead to USC.

Byline: The Register-Guard

PULLMAN, Wash. - Helmets off, backs to the field, they chatted. Pat Kilkenny said something, and Cole Linehan and Ra'Shon Harris and Nick Reed laughed, and nodded their heads.

Behind them, Oregon scored again. They turned for a moment, applauded, then went back to the conversation, and maybe you're wondering why the Ducks' defensive linemen were yukking it up with the athletic director.

Forty-one seconds remained in the third quarter, but Oregon led by 49 points, and they had plenty of time to kill.

"It was cool to be able to do that," Kilkenny said.

Oregon romped past Washington State on Saturday. Sixty-two of 64 players who made the trip made it into the game. The Ducks scored a point for each of them - the final score was 63-14 - and could have kept on going. The starters spent much of the second half kibitzing on the sidelines.

"We feel real good right now," Jeremiah Johnson said, and he might have been understating the general mood.

Because about the time Harris was walking off the field and saying, "We were the dominant team we know we can be, and we know we are," several thousand Duck fans were chanting: "USC! USC! USC!"

Sure, you're thinking, but this Washington State team is, well, awful. Good point, and the Ducks' success must be filtered through that truth.

But this context is also relevant: Purdue and Boise State. So when Nick Aliotti said, "We won like we should have won," and Mike Bellotti added, "All groups hit on all cylinders," it meant something.

Saturday afternoon, we saw Oregon commit zero turnovers, and not have to dig itself out of a hole. Instead, the Ducks pounced on the Cougs' mistakes, blew to a big early lead and ended any WSU fantasies about an upset.

We noticed none of the quarterbacks wobbled off the field, or hobbled off. Instead, Jeremiah Masoli was effective - "good choices, good throws," Bellotti said.

Darron Thomas and Chris Harper each had success, and Harper had fun playing receiver, too. Heck, he might have made the best play with a fierce knockdown block on a Thomas scramble.

"I think he probably ran the wrong route," Chip Kelly said, chuckling.

There was a lot of joking, and plenty of laughter, and everyone left the locker room smiling. It was apparent that Johnson had it right:

They feel real good right now.

"We've definitely got our swagger back," Masoli said.

This is not an insignificant accomplishment, even against the Cougars. No, this was a pretty big deal, considering what happened last week.

And also, considering what comes next.

Talk all you want about extenuating circumstances, or how everything went just right for Boise State, and just wrong for Oregon. The loss hit hard.

"We felt like Boise got away with one," Masoli said.

When Aliotti said, "We should be 5-0," he was speaking for everyone. Also Masoli, with this: "We needed this pretty bad."

So yeah, they felt pretty good Saturday about what they'd done. And about what they believe they can do. After this weekend's results, that matchup in the Coliseum looks a little different, doesn't it?

The postgame questions and answers were as much about USC as Washington State. You expected that, and also the diplomatic answers ("We'll go to SC," said Patrick Chung, "and see how things go.").

What was unusual, what really illustrated Oregon's day, was this:

That third-quarter conversation between the A.D. and the defensive line? Turns out, they were talking USC, too. Kilkenny asked Linehan and Harris and Reed what we've all been asking each other, ever since Thursday: Did you see the Oregon State game? What did you think??The answers weren't readily available; you know, what's said on the sidelines stays on the sidelines. But their body language spoke loudly, and so did a few postgame nuggets.

Johnson, who ran for 89 yards - Oregon totaled 346 - said he was a little surprised that Oregon State "ran all over SC," and he just nodded when someone suggested Oregon's been pretty good at running, too.

Chung wasn't talking specifically about USC, but he said: "I believe we can dominate a lot of teams out there." And Masoli noted: "Everything is just starting to click."

And right then you realized what Saturday meant. Forget how bad Washington State is. That doesn't matter so much.

Oregon didn't get an open date to prepare for the Trojans. The Ducks got something better.

Listen to George Schroeder on "The Writer's Block" Monday-Friday from 9-10 a.m. on KSCR-AM 1320. E-mail him at [e-mail]