With defensive end Zack Freiter and cornerback Rashad Bauman watching from the sidelines with injuries, the Oregon defense had a tough time matching up with the offense at Thursday’s football scrimmage.
The Ducks capped their third week of spring workouts with a spirited battle that provided some entertainment to the couple hundred fans who showed up at the practice field near the Casanova Center.
“Our lack of depth on defense hurt us,” Oregon head coach Mike Bellotti said. “But we did some good things offensively and had some big plays.”
There was the 33-yard rushing touchdown for sophomore Kenny Washington, as well as the 75-yard bomb from true freshman Chris Lombardo to receiver Keith Allen.
But perhaps the one play that stood out from Oregon’s third scrimmage was the 38-yard scamper from hyped transfer tailback Onterrio Smith — his first big gain of the month.
Smith took the hand-off from third-string quarterback Scott Vossmeyer and began going right. Then he ran into a sea of defenders and reversed his direction.
The 5-foot-11 200-pounder then saw a seam and broke loose on the left side of the field, where he zig-zagged his way past a few defenders before being brought down 38 yards later.
“That felt really good man, I mean, being a running back, that’s what you live for right there: getting out in the open,” said Smith, who admits that he’s still only “75-80 percent” because of hamstring problems. “I popped it open, but I couldn’t get away.”
The offense made up for a relatively poor showing in its previous scrimmage with some crisp passing and solid execution in the no-huddle offense.
“I thought the offense took charge in that [no-huddle] drill and put the defense on its heels,” Bellotti said. “That may have set the tempo for the whole day.”
As usual, quarterback Joey Harrington was solid in his brief outing. Harrington connected on 6 of 7 pass attempts for 75 yards, including an 8-yard scoring pass to Allen in the deep left part of the end zone. Allen led all receivers with five catches for 113 yards.
Harrington’s back-up, sophomore Jason Fife, rebounded from his three-interception outing in the second scrimmage to throw for 100 yards on 9-of-11 passing. Vossmeyer completed 3 for 5 for 10 yards, while Lombardo totaled 102 yards on 2-of-3 passing.
“Joey did a nice job, and Jason Fife continued to improve today,” Bellotti said. “He came of age a little bit and did some nice things that won’t even show up in the stats.”
Only one field goal was made, a 23-yarder from junior transfer David Rosenberg.
Now, just because the offense garnered most of the attention Thursday, that doesn’t mean there wasn’t some serious defense being played.
There certainly were hard hits — including one bone-crushing sequence where a player crashed into a referee, who then took a cameraman down with him.
Sophomore free safety Keith Lewis always seemed to be in on every tackle and “was all over the field,” according to Bellotti. The Oregon coach also was impressed with linebackers Kevin Mitchell and David Moretti.
Oregon resumes practice Monday, Tuesday and Thursday before ending its spring season with the annual Spring Game on April 28 at Hillsboro Stadium near Portland.
“The defense will be ready next week,” cornerback Steve Smith said.