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Native Texas Josh Huff gets to close his Oregon career by playing in his home state, against Texas, on Dec. 30.

(Associated Press)

EUGENE – The last time Oregon met Texas, the Ducks strutted out of the 2000 Holiday Bowl with the school’s first 10-win season, an ascendant trajectory for the program and a springboard into the following season’s Bowl Championship Series victory and Heisman Trophy buzz.

When the No. 10 Ducks and Longhorns meet again Dec. 30 in the Alamo Bowl in San Antonio, the direction of each program will again be a central storyline. Each missed out on BCS bids Sunday, with the Ducks being shut out of a top-tier bowl for the first time in five seasons.

Instead, it’s a 3:45 p.m. kickoff on ESPN pitting teams with wounded bodies, pride and dashed dreams of more ambitious bowl stakes, a matchup in which each team understands the outcome could dramatically change its future.

“We put ourselves in this predicament,” Oregon redshirt sophomore quarterback Marcus Mariota said Sunday. “We didn’t give ourselves a lot of room to have the opportunity.

“… To finish off the season right will do a lot for our program and coach (Mark) Helfrich and build confidence around the community.”

A two-step to San Antonio – the Pac-12’s No. 2 bowl -- was two-loss Oregon’s most likely destination since its penultimate game, when it lost to Arizona and control of its Rose Bowl hopes on a drizzly day in the desert.

The Ducks’ landing spot wasn’t finalized until Sunday evening, however, when it became official that Oklahoma’s victory Saturday against then-No. 6 Oklahoma State was enough to leap into BCS consideration and vault the Ducks for a Sugar Bowl berth. Instead of the Alabama-Oregon matchup many had long dreamed of, the Sooners will play the Crimson Tide in New Orleans and the Ducks are headed to San Antonio for the first time in their 26-game bowl history.

While UO needed help to reach the BCS again, the Longhorns (8-4) played their own way out of a Fiesta Bowl berth Saturday. The Longhorns’ loss to Baylor decided the Big 12 championship and increased speculation about Mack Brown’s 16-season tenure as UT head coach. The Longhorns have not played in a BCS bowl since losing the 2010 national championship game – one year later Oregon would be runner-up -- and on Sunday billionaire and Texas booster Joe Jamail told the Austin American-Statesman that Brown “has not made a decision yet” on his future, but that one could come in two weeks.

“We didn’t finish the way we wanted to but we’re going to go back to work,” Brown said Sunday, adding that Oregon is a “tremendous challenge.”

“These guys are like Baylor, they can score fast and do a tremendous job.”

Key to whether UO can score fast is the health of Mariota, who has struggled with the effects of a knee injury late in the season. Asked if he’ll be 100 percent healthy by the game, he said Sunday that he “would like to think so.”

“Obviously I’m not sure how my body will be a few weeks from now but I’m going to continue on getting healthy,” he said.

Oregon is 11-15 all-time in the postseason, and winners of its past two. Since 1996, the Ducks are 4-3 against Big 12 opponents in bowl games. Texas is undefeated in its two previous Alamo Bowls, including a victory against Oregon State last season, and is 4-1 all-time vs. Oregon.

On his way out of Eugene for another week of recruiting, Helfrich called the matchup a “huge game” while alluding to the Ducks’ key weakness of stopping the run.

“We’ve been a little banged up on the defensive side of the ball,” he said.

Opponents rush for 164.5 yards per game on Oregon, and Texas averages nearly 200 yards per game – 197.6 – on the ground.

There is little overlap between the programs, one laden with burnt-orange tradition and the other still representing college football’s nouveau riche. Helfrich coached in the Big 12 as Colorado’s offensive coordinator from 2006-08 but faced the Longhorns just once in a 38-14 Texas win in 2008.

“I don’t think anyone’s disappointed,” center Hroniss Grasu said of the bowl pairing, after Mariota reported feeling a focus about the team during last week's mix of informal and full-contact workouts.

“It’s an honor to play this against Texas, Grasu said. “I think this would be a big momentum booster for the offseason. It’s exciting.”

The true excitement for Oregon started one week ago, however, with the announcement Grasu and Mariota had passed up early entry into the NFL. Unresolved are NFL decisions by running back De’Anthony Thomas and cornerback Ifo Ekpre-Olomu. If news of Mariota and Grasu’s returns buoyed UO's long-term hopes, it did little to help in the immediate interim as UO relied on dominoes from around the country to fall in order to ensure a BCS return.

Not enough did, leaving Oregon and Pac-12 title-game loser Arizona State as the only eligible teams not chosen for a BCS bowl. Top-10 teams Missouri and South Carolina play in a conference that already filled its two-team BCS allowance. The last time Oregon’s bowl game came before New Year’s Day was 2008, the year its current streak of six, 10-win seasons began.

Only four teams in UO program history have won 11 games or more. The first was 2001, when quarterback Joey Harrington – en route to a fourth-place Heisman finish – led the Ducks to the 11-win plateau one season after beating Texas to reach a then-record 10 wins.

“I think those guys set the foundation for what we’ve built around here,” Mariota said. “It says a lot when a team goes 10-2 and is disappointed and says a lot about where we’ve come as a program.”