By AC Coleman

For Dennis Dixon, the decision to play with a torn ACL was an obvious one

As Dennis Dixon crumbled to the Arizona turf on that dark Thursday night, the collective heart of Duck fans around the world stopped beating.

They all knew.

The ride had abruptly come to a complete stop. The national championship hopes, the Heisman Trophy race and the career of one of the most electrifying players to ever wear the green and yellow were all gone in an instant.

What was coming together as the 'perfect season' was nothing more than a cruel joke. As the Duck community mourned their loss, the same week Oregon boosters started receiving their 2007 bowl ticket applications in the mail.

Talk about salt in the wound.

But as I began talking fans and people surrounding the program, I found the pain they shared wasn't from losing out on an opportunity to go to New Orleans, or to party on campus when their team won it all. Most of the pain shared was for Dennis Dixon the man.

The picture of Dixon in tears on the sideline at Arizona graced the front page of several newspapers on that gloomy morning following the tragedy, and seemed to be the topic of conversation throughout the state. What people saw was a kid who had just lost something he loved.

In the next couple of days the truth started to surface. Dixon's ACL had already suffered a tear in the Arizona State game the week before, and Oregon's prized quarterback was out there playing on a bad wheel.

My question was, who cares?

The decision to play in the Arizona game with an injured knee was really quite simple for Dixon-if he could walk, he was playing.

Who are we to question whether or not this kid should have played? It was, in the end, up to Dennis. Can you imagine how heavy that decision was for a senior in college to make with everything that was on the line?

The entire nation was talking about him, his team was in the national title hunt and up to that point, Dixon was being looked at as the frontrunner for the Heisman Trophy.

I do respect the fact that he asked for a lot of advice. He consulted with doctors, talked to his father and even got advice from Coach Mike Bellotti on what to do. But the choice on whether or not to play ultimately came down to him.

To go out there with a torn ACL and try to lead his team to victory was, in my opinion, nothing short of courageous.

You hear stories all the time about players stepping up and leading their teams to victory with injuries. How many times did Troy Aikman or Steve Young step right back in and lead their team after suffering what some would call a major head injury?

It's called being tough.

Plus the guy didn't want his dream season to come to an end, and could you blame him? In 10 games in 2007 he led the Pac-10 in passing efficiency, threw for 2,136 yards and 20 touchdowns and ran for 583 yards with nine more trips to the endzone. His team was poised to compete for the national championship and he was their leader.

His team couldn't do it without him.

So after getting all the advice he could absorb, Dixon put on his pads and led his team.

Remember how beautiful his first drive was? It only took Oregon 2:36 to run seven plays and drive 70 yards to put the Wildcats in the hole early.

Remember how Dixon-facing questions from fans, the media and himself-sprinted into the endzone from 39 yards out for the first score of the game?

Remember how Dixon did all that with a torn ACL?

Anyone watching #10 scamper for the score had to think he was obviously physically able to perform, for a while. If he was able to out-race a Division-I defense on his first drive, he probably felt good enough to play when he made his decision.

It's really tough to keep an athlete on the sidelines. The last thing anyone wants is to not be able to play. Then go ahead and add the weight of possibly winning a national championship and the Heisman Trophy into the equation, and you start to see how this decision could have been made.

What if Dixon was able to finish that game and lead the Ducks to victory? Imagine the stories of his heroism that would have followed.

But it wasn't meant to be.

The brutality of athletics reached out and took Dennis Dixon from Duck fans, college football fans and his team. A season-ending injury for a college senior is a horrible thing. When a kid only has four years to have the time of his life, taking a whole season away is pretty cruel.

Especially if it's your last.