TEXAS-BOUND

You know a University of Oregon “away” football game is a big deal when it has its own Facebook page.

Yep, “Ducks in Dallas, 9-3-11” is an actual page on the mega-popular social networking site.

And Larry “Go Ducks” Newby is not only a “fan” of the page, he’s a fan of the Ducks — to say the least.

Miss seeing the third-ranked Ducks play the fourth-ranked Tigers of Louisiana State University on Saturday in front of more than 80,000 screaming college football lunatics in the biggest season opener in UO history?

Not Newby, who, in actuality, is not a “newbie” to this Duck stuff at all.

A 1974 UO graduate born in Eugene and raised in Springfield, he’s been watching the Ducks since he was a “Knothole Gang” kid who attended games at Hayward Field in the 1950s.

“It’s going to be exciting — I’m pumped!” Newby, a retired Eugene real estate agent, said Wednesday, standing in the Eugene Airport with his wife, Virginia Newby, before boarding a 12:30 p.m. United Airlines flight to Dallas, Texas, via Portland and Los Angeles.

The Newbys are among 15,300 UO season-ticket holders who bought up the school’s allotment of tickets to the game, which will air on ABC at 5 p.m. Saturday. It’s one of the premier games nationally to kick off the 2011 college football season, as the Ducks try to repeat 2010’s 12-0 regular season and get back to the national title game for a second straight year.

But there are sure to be more than 15,300 Duck fans in Cowboys Stadium Saturday, with thousands of others getting tickets any way they could for the sold-out game.

“This is our season, as you know,” said Larry Newby, whose real middle name is — fittingly enough — Eugene. “Lose this one, we’re done.”

Done? After just one game?

These are not your father’s Duck fans. These are Duck fans who want revenge on the Southeastern Conference, of which perennial powerhouse LSU is a member. That same conference includes those other Tigers, from Auburn, who beat the Ducks 22-19 for the national title in January.

“Oh, Oregon’s going to win — absolutely,” said Bev Jackson of Eugene, who flies out of the Eugene Airport at 5 a.m. today with her husband, Paul Jackson, a mid-1950s-era UO football player.

By how much?

“Well, I’d say by six points.”

Confident, if not overly.

Home to pro football’s Dallas Cowboys and the most expensive football stadium ever built, to the tune of $1.3 billion, Cowboys Stadium in nearby Arlington, Texas, includes a massive high-definition video screen that stretches above the field from 20-yard line to 20-yard line. It cost $40 million — or almost half what it took to remodel Autzen Stadium in 2002.

Despite being a sellout, more than 1,500 tickets were listed for sale Wednesday at the online ticket site Stubhub.com. They ranged in price from $27 for standing-room-only to $700 for a ticket with motor home parking.

UO fans who got tickets through the school had their choice of seats ranging from $70 to $250, and 500 students got $50 tickets, said Garrett Klassy, executive director of the Duck Athletic Fund.

The Jacksons either got the $200 or the $250 tickets — Bev Jackson wasn’t certain.

“I just know we got some really good tickets,” she said.

Well, if you can afford it …

“It’s not always what you can afford; it’s what your priorities are,” Jackson said.

Oh.

This will be the second trip to the stadium for the Newbys, who got a tour in May when the facility hosted a home and garden show. Their daughter and son-in-law, Amber and Todd Patterson, live in Arlington.

“It’s so clean, it’s like a hospital,” Larry Newby said of Cowboy Stadium, which has a retractable roof that’s expected to be closed for Saturday’s game to keep the stifling Texas heat out of the stadium.

Yes, the fancy stadium — although many Dallas-bound Duck fans said they are sure they’d never trade it for beloved 54,000-seat Autzen — is a draw for some.

“It’s a great opponent, and we wanted to see that stadium,” said Kelly Shafer of Portland, a 1981 UO graduate and a member of the “Ducks in Dallas, 9-3-11” Facebook page. She will fly from Portland to Dallas on Friday with her husband, Mark Shafer, also an ’81 UO grad, and another couple.

Another reason the Shafers are going? Because they could get tickets, whereas they are still trying to get season tickets at Autzen, where the Ducks have sold out every home game since the middle of the 1999 season.

“We decided we’re going to start getting tickets for the away games because we can get tickets to those,” Kelly Shafer said. She and her husband already have tickets for the UO’s game on Oct. 22 — at the University of Colorado.