Every now and then in sports, some team will come up with a better way.

Think "Total Football"—the free-flowing brand of soccer that the Dutch club team Ajax perfected in the 1970s; or the warp-speed Loyola Marymount basketball program of two decades ago, which still holds the single-season Division I scoring record (122.4 points per game); or the University of Houston football team, whose innovative run 'n' shoot passing attack allowed it to score 95 points in a single game.

Now that spring practice season has wrapped across college football, it's becoming increasingly clear that there may be another team on the verge of reaching this pantheon of all-time creative geniuses. It's the Oregon Ducks.

This team's recent accomplishments have been well noted. Using a warp-speed offense that operates 34% more quickly than most conventional teams, Oregon averaged 47 points and 531 yards per game last season, both No. 1 nationally, and has won 20 of its past 21 games in the Pac-10 conference. Though Oregon lost to Auburn in the BCS national championship game, it recently received another kind of validation that's typical of genius teams: that it has done what it has without superior talent. During the NFL's recent seven-round draft, only one Oregon player was selected.

One of the best arguments in Oregon's favor is what happened this spring. Opposing coaches across the soon-to-be-rechristened Pac-12 scrambled to make adjustments in the name of trying to handle the Ducks.