The last time Oregon lost back to back games was 2007 when Dennis Dixon and Jonathan Stewart occupied the same backfield, and Mike Bellotti was still the head coach of the Ducks. That year they actually lost three straight, starting with a late season road loss to Arizona, followed by losses to UCLA and Oregon State.
Coming off their loss to Arizona last Thursday, the Ducks will face UCLA Saturday.
Since those losses in '07, the program has changed hands from Bellotti to Chip Kelly, and now to Mark Helfrich, who have both found a method to ensure that sure one loss doesn't beat them twice.
Yesterday, when asked about "the secret sauce" behind how they've been able to do that as a program by a reporter, Helfrich's answer was simple.
"I think our coaches and players know that everyone is in this together. It's not that 'Hey the punt return unit was awesome and everyone else stunk'. It was simple, WE won, or WE lost and this is what we did well, lets sustain that, and this is what we didn't do well, let's improve upon that and go...win or lose."
"We also have to find out what, in the game, was miscommunicated, not executed exactly perfectly, and go forward treating and teaching those situations almost identically."
"Those guys know that we're here for them and we have their back, and we're in this together."