As we wake up to a Sunday morning that will bring with it a likely number one ranking later in the day for Oregon, there are a lot of different thoughts out there. But my thoughts are more about digression into a review of Friday night’s game.

There have been plenty of doubters throughout the season – myself included at times – about how good Oregon really was this season. I don’t think there is an issue with talking about those doubts on whatever form different media members share their knowledge, thoughts, opinions, and analysis. The question is where do we stop our doubts? Do we attack others for not having similar doubts? Does it really matter if members from different fringes on the edge of this debate disagree with us?

Why am I asking? Because I think this is a part of the shifting sands of media and sports coverage. For a long time ‘traditional’ media – newspapers the most prominent – has been a dying industry. There are a lot of journalism graduates who left school with dreams of covering sports. What more could you want if you are a journalist and a sports fan? You get to be around something you love and talk about it with others.

Those members of traditional media enjoyed unparalleled access to a lot of inside information. But as technology took hold of every corner of business, and as traditional print newspapers started to turn away from the personnel heavy coverage of local teams, those dreams faded into oblivion and a lot of those folks found themselves looking for a way to keep a career moving forward in an industry that had turned away from them unceremoniously.

Some found outlets and others found that they could use social media to stay a part of the conversation. But that requires a lot of engagement and that leads to engagement farming. If there is any doubt, some of the engagement farming clearly centers around Oregon. They are the biggest brand in the state and their popularity brings with it a lot of content consumers. The thing about fans is that there is a sense of pride in whatever is happening with their team, and it feels like a sort of verbal assault when ‘their team’ is diminished by those in media. And when it comes from the fringes of media, it seems to feel even more diminishing.

For the most part, this engagement farming is a survival skill that is necessary for those seeking to stay relevant. And some just enjoy needling people because they respond.

Generally speaking, I refuse to engage with those who only want to see if they can get people to engage solely for the sake of engagement. It is difficult at times. Especially when their thoughts defy logic. Patience is the key and a reminder that my job really is to just bring information to our subscribers and readers. Plus, I just don’t have the time to spend responding to clear click bait X comments.

So, the question then is: was the win over Purdue a great win? Or was it not a great win? Two thoughts on this question. First – it is hard to win college football games. While Oregon may have better players at every position, there is another team whose coaches work really hard and game plan to try and win the game. Second, it is even harder to shut out teams. Oregon had not done so in a dozen years, and it had been 32 years since they had done so on the road.

That makes what happened on Friday night rare. When you complete a rare feat, I think that can be described as great. Are there some areas in which Oregon had flaws? Yes. But that does not take away from the quality of shutting out a conference opponent on the road. To call it anything less is to quibble for the sake of quibbling.

But this all takes away the reality that Oregon will be ranked number one later today. This is historic because this time it feels like the Ducks are about as complete a team as they have ever been. Does being number one matter in the expanded 12 team College Football Playoff? Not entirely. It would give the team a guaranteed bye and a pretty good matchup in the second round of the playoff, but at the end of the day, the ranking is less important now than it has ever been – except for there is a certain pride in the moment.

None of this will matter to Dan Lanning or the rest of the coaching staff. The Ducks have a pretty good Illinois team coming into town Saturday for a 12:30 matchup and the Illini will be looking to pull off a massive upset. This is the moment when we see if outside noise really is something that Oregon can set aside.

And if they do, there will still be engagement farming detractors looking to take digs. It’s like the sun rising. We know it is going to happen. It always does.