Flock Talk: Hold On

Spring camp is where Oregon starts to look less like an idea and more like a team you can actually imagine carrying your hopes into fall

Your old hometown's so far away
But inside your head there's a record that's playing
You got to hold on
If you live it up, you won't live it down (Tom Waits)

There is something almost irrational about the way spring camp hits for college football fans.

The games do not count. The depth charts are unfinished. Half of what we think we are seeing in March or April will look different by the time the leaves turn and the weather cools. Every fan base in the country talks itself into at least a little bit of magic this time of year, and most of them will eventually be forced to deal with the gap between spring imagination and autumn reality.

And yet, I love spring camp anyway.