At Big Ten Media Days Bryce Boettcher came to answer questions, so Ohio State fan site "Eleven Warriors" took the opportunity to rehash the Rose Bowl.
They asked him what he thought had happened, how difficult it was, how shocking it was, and whether it gave him more to prove in 2025.
Boettcher was candid and poised. "It sucks that we had to go out that way," he said.
"That's part of the game. You're prepared to win and you don't always win. This definitely propelled myself and the returning guys forward this offseason. I think even the new guys have bought into it."
"Whether they were on the team or not, they're still a part of it now that they wear the Oregon jersey. But as much as it still fires us and fuels us it's a new season and a new team, so we're looking forward to this year."
The OSU guys pressed him. "We're you shocked at how it went?" they asked, "Considering what you'd put it into it for three years, were you shocked at how it played out?"
"Yeah, I was pretty shocked, man, walking off the field at the end. You wouldn't expect it to go that way, given that we'd already beat them. They just came out with their hair on fire, played a better football game than we did. That's the way the game goes sometimes."
The lines from "The Man in the Arena" seem to apply here. The 11 non-warriors persisted. "What do you think that happened in that game that made it so different from the first game?"
Boettcher thought for a beat. "I think they had a chip on their shoulder. I think after losing to us the first time and then losing to Michigan they had something to prove and when you have a talented team with something to prove in football that's a dangerous mix."
"We were 13 and 0, fresh off a championship. They just came out hungrier with better players and better scheme and they beat us."
"Do you guys feel like you have more to prove now because of the way that game went?"
Boettcher answered, "Absolutely."
The senior linebacker said that was fueling him this year, but for him it goes deeper. "Once you're a walk-on, you're always a walk-on, regardless of whether you win the Burlsworth or win a championship it's always in the back of your mind."
"You're never good enough and you always have to get better and you're never satisfied."
Boettcher came to Oregon as a baseball player and a 185-pound walk-on safety from South Eugene High. He enters his bonus senior year as a 235-pound linebacker, a scholarship player, the 13th-round draft pick of the Houston Astros, former Gold Glove centerfielder for the Ducks, and 2024 winner of the Burlsworth Trophy, the award given to the most valuable player in college football who started his career as a walk-on.
In his two years as a starter the Ducks are 25-3, current champions of the Big Ten in their first year in the league.