Sophomore wide receiver Drew Davis is out for the rest of the season after suffering a torn ACL in his right knee during Oregon’s 35-28 win over Stanford on Saturday.
Davis will have surgery sometime next week, said Oregon head coach Mike Bellotti, whenever it would least affect his classes.
Davis had two catches for 51 yards in his first game as a starter after winning the job over senior Jaison Williams in practice the previous week. Davis has five catches for 85 yards for the season.
“We’ll just go ahead and start practicing and rotate people in there,” Bellotti said. “Certainly Jaison Williams, if you have an alternative to a starter, he’s it … He still has a chance to break every receiving record that there is and I actually believe that he’ll do that.”
Bellotti said that because of the injury, junior Rory Cavaille and true freshman Garrett Embry may find their way into the receiver rotation as well.
Starting placekicker position still up in the air
Junior placekicker Morgan Flint was perfect in his first start Saturday, making both of his field goal attempts (27 and 36 yards) and all three extra points.
He replaced senior Matt Evensen after an open competition in practice the previous week. Evensen has converted 61 percent of his field goal opportunities (11-for-18) as the starter in all of the previous games and has missed multiple field goals twice this season, against Boise State and UCLA.
Evensen still started as the kickoff man for the Ducks against Stanford, and recovered a fumble on the opening kick.
Coach Mike Bellotti wants to see more of both kickers on field goals and extra points in practice this week, declaring another week of competition for the starting job.
“Right now it’s back to square one,” he said. “I thought Morgan Flint did a great job last week and was perfect on his placement kicks and it’ll be competitive this week.”
‘Boo birds’ don’t bother Bellotti
The Autzen Stadium crowd attracted some media attention this week for the growing number of boos at several junctures of the game Saturday.
One instance that elicited boos from the stands was at the end of the first half on Saturday. Oregon called two timeouts during Stanford’s possession deep in Cardinal territory with less than a minute left, in hopes of blocking a punt or breaking off a big return and getting a field goal or better out of it.
The punt came low and wide, bouncing away from junior returner Jairus Byrd and negating any chance for a return. The Ducks took over in their own territory and took a knee to end the half.
Many fans disagreed with not trying to make something happen offensively with the remaining 20 seconds and vocalized the opinion.
“It’s sort of tough to figure out the fans sometimes, but they’re fans. They pay their money to come into the stadium. They’re very passionate and that’s true everywhere in college football,” Bellotti said. “I think it’s just a condition of college athletics nowadays, and the impatience of fans and the immaturity of fans.”
Bellotti also said that to him, booing is a sign that the program has raised the expectations of its fan base, which is a positive thing.
“Certainly they’ve risen over the years and we’ve been probably the prime mover of that,” he said. “There’s a certain pride in that but at the same time the fickleness of the fans is something that’s always interesting to me.”
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