With the news that sophomore quarterback Justin Roper would be sidelined for at least a couple of weeks with a knee injury, Oregon players showed no signs this week of the shell-shock that seemed to overtake the program last year when starting quarterback Dennis Dixon went down with an injury.
Remember the looks on the faces of the Duck players on the sideline of last season’s game at Arizona after Dixon went down? To me they all looked like they had been punched in the stomach – or perhaps kicked just a bit lower.
Of course, Roper was certainly not the yard-churning juggernaut that Dixon became last season, but some of the Ducks are acknowledging the similarity of the situation and how what they went through last season helps them deal with it this season.
As an observer, I’m certainly getting numb to the pain of seeing yet another Oregon quarterback sidelined. I think this team is too, and maybe that’s a good thing.
“We’ve been through this with Dennis Dixon leaving and having to go with some other people,” senior running back Jeremiah Johnson said of the situation. “But we’ve just got to play. We can’t harp on our injuries because when you do that you tend to forget about other things. We’ve got to stay on a one-track mind toward winning.”
Senior center Max Unger, asked if the feel of practice this week compared at all to the feel leading up to the game at UCLA last season, said the situation isn’t quite that grim.
“I hate to make comparisons (to last season),” he said. “And I think we learned from it.
“I still have confidence, and we’ve got Chip back there – he’ll cook something up.”
Whatever offensive coordinator Chip Kelly cooks up in the coming weeks, it will likely center around the running game, seemingly one of the few “sure things” left for the Ducks on the offensive side of the ball.
Junior transfer running back LeGarrette Blount said he and the other running backs understand the pressure put on them to carry the load of the offense sans Roper.
“We realize that we’ve had Nate go down and Roper go down, so we’ll have to take a little bit more on our shoulders now than we’ve had to do in the last few weeks,” Blount said. “But I think we’re up to the challenge.”
Who will lead the Duck offense this Saturday against the Boise State Broncos is still a mystery, as the Oregon coaching staff closes ranks and toes a tight-lipped line. Before practice Monday, head coach Mike Bellotti was loathe to even reveal a practice order, saying instead that who takes the snaps will “depend on the play.” Kelly half-jokingly said he’ll take a look at who’s healthy Saturday and that’s who will play.
I don’t really think it matters. Both Jeremiah Masoli and Chris Harper are gifted with attributes that will serve them well in Oregon’s spread offense. Masoli has a strong arm, especially on the run, and Harper is a born playmaker with a body built to take the kind of pounding Oregon quarterbacks seem to need.
And while I don’t want to pile on, I would like to point out again that Roper wasn’t exactly setting the world on fire. Is he a good kid with a calm presence and his fair share of moxy? Yes. But irreplaceable? Hardly.
So if the Ducks have to win a few games this season based on their running game, or defense, or special teams, so be it. This team is far better equipped to do so than last season’s team, or any team in recent memory.
[email protected]