LOS ANGELES — Chip Kelly will not say it, but his players will.

Oregon really needs to win this one.

The Oregon head coach has bristled all week when asked if the Ducks must beat Wisconsin in today’s Rose Bowl to be validated as a national power in college football, after losses in last year’s national championship game and in the 2010 Rose Bowl.

“It’s not a comparison of what happened in games past,” Kelly said. “We have never talked about that. We won’t talk about it, because our teams are drastically different. Our 2009 team was different than our 2010 team, and now our 2011 team is drastically different than any of those other teams. There is no ‘Hey, we won this year, so that justifies what happened the other two years.’ ”

The Ducks have won 42 games since 2008, the most in school history for a four-year stretch. They are one of just two teams since the expansion from the Pac-8 to the Pac-10 (now the Pac-12) to win three consecutive outright conference titles, and the only team in the country to reach the Bowl Championship Series each of the past three postseasons.

Still, many college football fans and media will not completely buy into the UO program until the Ducks prove they can win a major bowl game. Oregon’s last and only BCS bowl win was the Fiesta Bowl in 2002. Four Ducks will be starting their third straight BCS game in today’s Rose Bowl: running back LaMichael James, offensive lineman Mark Asper, and safeties Eddie Pleasant and John Boyett. Those players believe they still have something to prove.

“We have to finally win one,” Pleasant said. “We have to get this win. I don’t know about anybody else, but as a player, it’s weighing on me a lot. I’m done after this game, but still it’s something that I felt like we accomplished everything here but the BCS game, so that’s one thing I feel like we need to really get done.”

To do so, Pleasant and the Oregon defense will have to contain Wisconsin’s dynamic quarterback, Russell Wilson, and power running back Montee Ball.

This could possibly be the highest-scoring Rose Bowl in history, as Oregon ranks third nationally in scoring offense and Wisconsin ranks fourth. Neither team has been held to fewer than 27 points this season.

Duck players and coaches have answered endless questions the past month about their spread-option offense, which opposing defenses seem to figure out how to stop when they have extended time to prepare. This year, LSU held the Ducks to a season-low 27 points in the season opener.

But the bowl games are the ones that are the most obvious examples. Oregon did not score a single first-quarter point against Auburn in last year’s national title game, nor against Ohio State in the 2010 Rose Bowl.

“We made some mistakes in those two games that were different, coaches and players,” said Oregon offensive coordinator Mark Helfrich. “There were turnovers that were uncharacteristic. There were some unforced errors that were uncharacteristic.”

James, the nation’s leading rusher, figures to have a big influence on how the offense will perform today. He usually sticks to Kelly’s script in interviews, but even James has noted just how much he wants to beat Wisconsin.

“I want it really bad and I wanted the other two (BCS games) really bad and I want every game really bad,” James said. “This is a big game for us … we haven’t won one and I really want to win a BCS game.”

Asper said winning a BCS bowl has been on players’ minds since the loss to Auburn last January. They do not want to be remembered as a team that lost three straight BCS games.

“It’s been part of our culture and part of what we’ve talked about and emphasized since February,” Asper said. “…Part of the offseason workouts, part of spring ball, part of summer workout and our fall camp and everything has been to put that knowledge of what we’ve done in our recent history looming over our heads and how we don’t want that to be our identity.”

Pleasant — a senior who leads the Oregon defense with three interceptions this season — said he feels personal pressure to win today.

“I feel like just because it’s my last game, and we’ve been here twice and haven’t gotten a BCS win, for the most part, I feel that pressure,” Pleasant said. “I feel like we need to win this game. This would be a big statement game for us.”

Indeed it would, and it would help to cement the legacy of Oregon football over the past four years of unprecedented success. But Kelly does not like the term ‘legacy,’ at least when talking about college students.

“I do find it humorous when people talk about 19-, 20, 21-year-old kids and what their legacy is going to be,” Kelly said. “They’re just kids. We played our tails off down in Phoenix (in last year’s national title game), and we lost on a field goal with no time left on the clock. It was a great experience for our guys. They’ve learned from it. We’ve learned from it as coaches, but we move on.

“But if you keep saying we have to be motivated (today) because of something that happened last January … I can’t get some of our kids to remember what happened yesterday in practice, let alone last January.”

The coach was joking. Obviously, they remember the heartbreaking loss to Auburn. As does the rest of college football.

But beat Wisconsin today, and the Ducks’ recent bowl setbacks might soon be forgotten.

The Rose Bowl

No. 5 Oregon vs. No. 10 Wisconsin, today, 2 p.m.

• TV: ESPN • Radio: KICE-AM 940