Did online chats knock game offline?

Byline: Ron Bellamy / The Register-Guard

Oregon's attempt to extract itself from a deal to play a football game at Nevada in September so that it can instead face powerhouse Oklahoma on national TV has apparently failed.

"As it stands right now, we're going to play Nevada," athletics director Bill Moos said Tuesday, adding that the Ducks are "still having conversations" with the Sooners in hopes of scheduling a home-and-home series "a few years down the road."

Alas, not for 2006, when Oregon dearly wants a high-profile home game because it plays Washington and Oregon State on the road.

We'll probably know something just as soon as a coach or staffer in the Casanova Center leaks the news to a Big Donor, who then confides in a Medium Donor, who passes the word to a Small Donor, whose buddy breathlessly posts the news on the Internet, heart a-pounding.

On his Tuesday morning radio show, a clearly vexed Moos blamed premature discussions in "chat rooms" for the current attempt to play the Sooners falling through.

It isn't the first time this year that Moos might have been better served by hitting the mute button. In January, he hinted on his radio show that he might be interested in the vacant athletic director's job at Washington, which a yapping pack of newshounds - I resemble that remark - immediately brayed into a full-fledged hoo-haw.

By the way, if there's one thing reporters hate more than someone stonewalling them, it's someone out-and-out lying to them.

So it's wonderfully ironic that after Moos, a Washington native, sincerely and candidly discussed his possible interest in the UW job, the media consensus was that Moos should have stonewalled.

Or out-and-out lied.

The Husky thing has made Moos a target for some of the anonymous posters who frequent eDuck, the popular Web site for Oregon fans. He's been labeled a traitor, an opportunist and a double-agent. And that's by the guys who can spell.

News of the Oklahoma negotiations appeared on eDuck a week ago. Reporters scurried for telephones, and OU athletics director Joe Castiglione confirmed the story. However vicious and wrong message-board postings can be, the "chat room" reports on the UO-OU negotiations (A) were absolutely true, and (B) obviously originated with a leak from within the Cas Center.

The negotiations were sensitive because the Oregon visit to Nevada is a big deal for Nevada. Pac-10 teams don't often go there, and when they do, they fill the stadium, which is good for the school, and bring fans, which is good for the hotels and casinos.

Nevada needed an artful and done-deal way out of the contract, with Oregon either coming at a later date - 2008, offered by the Ducks, was deemed too late - and/or procuring a commensurate replacement for September. Moos said Oregon and ESPN offered Nevada "a couple of mid-majors" but conceded those short-notice choices lacked the appeal of the Ducks.

Castiglione said Tuesday the publicity was "very damaging" to the talks, adding that the deal is "not dead yet" but "much less likely."

Moos said Oregon could have bought its way out of the Nevada contract; the expense would have been amply covered by profits from playing the Sooners on national TV in September, and by an Autzen-filling return trip by OU in the future. "I don't like to operate that way," he said.

Indeed, Moos, who lauded Michigan for fulfilling its bargain to visit Oregon, would have had some 'splainin' to do. And the back-out could have been damaging.

Consider: Nevada is a reasonably credible regional opponent willing to play Oregon twice in Eugene for every visit to Reno; offend Nevada and Oregon also risks offending other WAC schools that it needs for nonleague games. And if Nevada can't trust Oregon for a return game, can Oregon trust Oklahoma?

Good reasons, so we won't mention the chat-room conspiracy theory, which is that by the time Oklahoma repays an Oregon visit, Moos figures he'll be wearing purple.