I ask this question in all earnestness.

I’m throwing (well, more correctly, my wife is, and I’m helping) a baby shower-type function on Sunday the 10th for work friends of my best bud and his wife, who are expecting in November.

Today, lamenting the failure of my peeps to RSVP to the Evite I sent them well over a week ago, I started the arduous process of calling each and every person on the list who’s phone number I have. Not my idea, mind you, as I firmly believe that e-mail was invented so I’d never have to talk to people again.

But my wife insisted.

Anyway, I talked to my friend Bill, who said that he’d misread the Evite to say that the party was this weekend, which (of course) is the launch of the football season. And he had thought me off my rocker for doing any such thing.

I agreed that, had I scheduled such a faux pas, it would mean that I should have my sports-loving gizzards drawn and quartered as punishment.

Then, after hanging up, I realized something. Football season is coming, Portland will be just as stuck to their TV’s as everyone else, and, yet, we don’t really have much in the way of a football team to call our own…

Sure, there’s Portland State. But who, really, follows them? Noone I know.

So the question I have for you is this:

Who is Portland’s team come football season?

To be fair, this is not an original question. I think Ian Furness discussed it on the air last year, and may have even blogged ^[1] about it (though I searched and couldn’t find anything). But it’s a question that, I suppose, will get asked periodically by sports fans throughout town.

If I read the winds correctly, Portland is primarily a college football town. Perhaps because so many of us (me excluded, actually) come from U of O or OSU stock, whether by our own attendance or that of our predecessors. If you’re like me, it may be because you once dated a Duck or a Beaver and you got hooked watching a game with them (particularly when it was the Ducks/Penn State Rose Bowl back in the 90’s…). Or, perhaps, it’s the accessibility of Eugene (2 hours away) or Corvallis (somewhat less) that allows you to pop on down I-5 and attend a (relatively) cheap, almost-pro-quality sporting event.

Whatever it is, I’d say that the Ducks and the Beavers (and I’ll put them in that order) are atop the heap of Portland teams.

But who’s next?

Not PSU. Not by a long shot. Not to be mean. Just being accurate.

And not necessarily the Seahawks, though I’d suggest that they are growing in prominence after their recent success and their radio deal on KXL.

I’d suggest that next on the list is probably an NFL franchise with high-powered marketing and a good TV deal, like (perhaps) the Dallas Cowboys. I remember the Raiders used to get a lot of play in this market, but they aren’t competitive enough to keep us on the bandwagon.

After that, the fall is precipitous, and you start to run into a lot of ties. Notre Dame rates high because of the airtime they get on TV and radio, and the fact that they have a built-in constituency nationwide with the Catholics among us. BYU enjoys a similar constituency advantage, though certainly to a lesser degree.

So, here it is, my top 10 list of Portland’s football teams. See if you agree. If not, offer your alternative.

1) U of O
2) OSU
3) Dallas Cowboys
4) Seattle Seahawks
5) Notre Dame
6) tie – San Fran/Oakland (due to geography and TV scheduling)
8) PSU
9) Cincinatti Bengals (aka OSU East)
10) Wild Card – Miami Dolphins (or Harrington’s Last Stand)

Discuss…