Oregon football opened fall camp Monday, less than four weeks from its first game of the season, Aug. 30 at Autzen Stadium against Pacific-10 Conference foe Washington. The traditional rivalry between the Huskies and Ducks has helped the team focus even more intently on first-game preparation than in past years, according to coach Mike Bellotti.
“I really feel like it adds an importance to the first game that might not have been there otherwise. It’s a league game, it counts, it’s going to affect a lot of things down the road,” Bellotti said. “And certainly against a border-state opponent, traditional rival, it ought to galvanize everybody. I think it got our players attention several months ago when it was announced.”
The Ducks will go into the game ranked about No. 20 in the nation in most polls, and will take on the Huskies in front of a national television audience. The ranking, and the chance to show a national audience what Oregon football is capable of, also add to the importance of the opener.
“I think that puts another form of positive pressure on our football program and we like that,” Bellotti said. “We feel good about that.”
The biggest question on an offense otherwise loaded with talent is at the quarterback position, where redshirt sophomore Nate Costa will start camp as the top signal caller and sophomore Justin Roper will be next. Bellotti said that the emphasis is on evolving and tailoring the offense to this season’s team, not trying to replace Dennis Dixon.
“I don’t know if you talk about replacing Dennis Dixon…there’s a void there. He became on of the greatest football players to put on a uniform and certainly one of the most dominant players in college football last year,” Bellotti said. “Having said that, I’m fairly comfortable and confident with our quarterback position.”
After Costa and Roper, the quarterback depth chart, which will change constantly throughout camp according to Bellotti, has freshmen Chris Harper and Darron Thomas next with junior college transfer Jeremiah Masoli rounding out the position.
“Chris Harper is maybe the best guy, with the ball in his hands, of anybody on our football team. If he demonstrates consistency throwing the football he will be in the mix,” said Bellotti of Harper’s chances to move up from third on the chart and forego a redshirt this season. As for using Harper in other roles besides quarterback, Bellotti was loathe to speculate.
“Right now that type of decision would be his. We’ve talked about him as a quarterback in this program and I feel pretty strongly, as I think he does, that we want to give that a shot,” he said.
And while the youth and relative inexperience of the Oregon quarterbacks might have some prognosticating a rotation at the position like Duck fans have seen in past seasons, Bellotti said he hopes that isn’t the case at the end of fall camp.
“Obviously we would all like to have one quarterback. If we decide to play more than one it’s because they both deserve to play or they bring certain things to the table that the other may not,” he said. “We’ve done it in the past, I think actually with quite a bit of success, but it’s not necessarily something that we would choose to do.”