MARIO CRISTOBAL TALKS ABOUT THE OPPORTUNITY TO PLAY FOR ANOTHER PAC-12 CROWN – “These opportunities are hard to come by – at the end of the season you always want to be playing for a championship”

No matter how they got there, the unranked Oregon Ducks are indeed playing for another Pac-12 title.

And while the entire country is in the process of providing their personal impressions, opinions, and judgments of why the Ducks shouldn’t be playing in Los Angeles on Friday against the USC Trojans, Oregon head coach Mario Cristobal remains unfazed by those discussions and is just thankful for the opportunity to compete.

“These opportunities are hard to come by now, right,” explained Cristobal when asked about the championship game.

“Not that we had an entire offseason right? We didn’t and not that we had a full camp, we did not. But at the end of the season you always want to be playing for a championship, right? Or you want to be in that conversation.

“We find ourselves in that situation in a crazy manner, obviously. But I want to say again, last week was pretty crazy in itself because we were set to play and we put ourselves in the position to play for the North Division and had that stripped from us, only to come back a week later to be in a position where that step is skipped.”

Oregon will be playing for their second consecutive conference championship in as many years. ( Photo courtesy of the Pac-12 )

It’s certainly been a roller-coaster type of scenario over the last 72 hours for Cristobal, his staff and his team.

In the matter of six days, the Ducks have started to prepare for three different opponents and now must prepare for the Trojans in a shortened practice week.

“I don’t think there was a down,” said Cristobal when asked if there was a boomerang mental effect on his team regarding all of the changes.

“I’m sure there’s an added portion of juice, I guess you might say when you realize that you’re playing now for the championship – the second year in a row. The level of preparation and urgency was really high in preparation for Colorado.”

Oregon head coach Mario Cristobal is all smiles after the Ducks beat Washington in Seattle last season. ( Photo courtesy of ODFN )

AUBURN INTERESTED, BUT OREGON LOOKS TO EXTEND CRISTOBAL

It’s that time of year again when schools fire coaches and look to hire the next hottest name in college football. Oregon has been through that scenario several times in recent years with Willie Taggert and Cristobal himself spurning Miami to remain in Eugene.

Now it’s Auburn, which fired longtime coach Gus Malzahn on Sunday. The Tigers position makes sense for Cristobal in that he was an Alabama assistant and knows the area well. That said, the potential jump doesn’t make sense for Cristobal since Auburn is a rebuilding project and he has Oregon rolling on the field as well as off the field in recruiting. Cristobal currently has the fifth best recruiting class in all of college football.

If money is a factor, which it always is in one way or another, the Ducks are looking to extend Cristobal’s contract that would include a big fat raise, one he definitely deserves.

I trust Phil Knight, I trust Rob Mullens, I trust our administration and I trust people here at Oregon,” Cristobal said.

MARIO CRISTOBAL DISCUSSES PLAYING FOR THE PAC-12 TITLE VS USC

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