Program to keep growing.

Byline: Ron Bellamy / The Register-Guard

BEFORE YOU TAKE your seat on Saturday afternoon for the Civil War, stroll for a bit around the rim of Autzen Stadium, and not simply to keep yourself from dwelling on how much you paid for your ticket (face value or scalper's price), or for warmth on the first day of December.

Look around and remember the view, because Autzen Stadium will be different the next time you see it. And when the game is underway and the now-famous Autzen noise envelopes you, listen and remember that, too.

What began in 1967 as simply an oval-shaped bowl - before the Stadium Club was built beyond the east end zone, before the addition of the skyboxes and skysuites on the north rim, before the MegaVision scoreboard - will undergo its most dramatic change since construction.

In some ways, Oregon football won't be quite the same. The expectations and pressures will be as grand as the renovated stadium.

By next season's opener against Mississippi State on Aug. 31, Autzen Stadium will have been expanded to roughly 53,800 seats, mostly by raising the south side and adding more rows of seats. The project will also add 32 new skyboxes, a new press box and an exclusive club-level area.

The bulk of the construction work begins next Monday, and while the Ducks have chosen a design that "grows the bowl" to retain the intimacy and feel of Autzen while adding just more than 12,000 seats, the reality is that it's not going to feel exactly the same.

Consider, for example, the new roof on the south side of the stadium, over rows that in some sections will go as high as row 94, and over the adjoining building that will house the club level, plus two levels of sky boxes, plus the press box. The new roof will loom twice as high over Rich Brooks Field as the existing roof over the donor sections, soaring from about 87 feet above the field now to roughly 170 feet when the south side is renovated.

To Oregon, the stadium expansion is hugely important, an investment of $89.7 million to reap the reward of increased ticket sales and sky box revenue that the Ducks believe will benefit all their athletic programs.

Still, in the recent history of Oregon football, there's been a strong correlation between investment in facilities - this project will also include major improvements to the weight room - and better teams, culminating with the UO team that plays Oregon State on Saturday for sole possession of the Pac-10 title, with a Fiesta Bowl berth secured.

Even the mere promise of a better facility - the proposed dome over Autzen in the mid-1980s, a vision that never became reality - helped produce one of Oregon's best recruiting classes. That group formed the nucleus of the 1989 Independence Bowl team, Oregon's first bowl berth in 26 years and the first of 10 bowl teams in 13 seasons, including this one.

Recently, former Oregon football coach Rich Brooks recalled the tailback of that team, Derek Loville, practicing for the Civil War his senior year, amid absolutely horrid conditions in Autzen Stadium, this being long before the indoor practice facility was a viable project.

"Hey coach," Loville asked, through the sleet, "Where's that dome you promised me?"

BROOKS WAS THE fourth Oregon head coach to work in Autzen Stadium, and he can remember when getting the Stadium Club in 1981 was considered a milestone, and what it meant to add the 11 original skyboxes and skysuite in 1988. In 1994, Brooks' 18th season, he took the Ducks to the Rose Bowl in a year in which the Ducks had five home crowds less than 37,000, two of them under 30,000.

But the fuse for Oregon's growth was lit. Against a listed seating capacity of 41,698, the Ducks have averaged more than 41,000 in home attendance every season since then, packing in fans to the tune of 45,093 per game last year, and a record 45,896 this season.

In sheer number of of seats, the expanded Autzen won't change Oregon's ranking in the Pac-10 overall. Washington, Southern California, Stanford, UCLA, Arizona State and Cal will still play in larger stadiums, housing from 72,500 fans up to 92,000, bigger not always being better. Oregon's new capacity will still be not quite Arizona's (56,002).

But the expansion project reflects Oregon's success in football and its commitment to maintaining that success. And the Ducks separate themselves from their Civil War rivals, the Beavers, whose own stadium seats 35,362, and from the Northwest's other small-market program, Washington State, with 37,600-seat Martin Stadium.

The Beavers will do something to close the gap; the coming year will surely produce an expansion plan for Reser Stadium.

For Oregon, the expanded Autzen Stadium will reflect the already expanded expectations of fans, and of the program itself. So look around on Saturday, and savor the view of the way it was. It will be a bigger Autzen the next time you see it, to hold the football program that's gotten bigger before our eyes.