With last weekend off, some of the Oregon football players like quarterback Dennis Dixon and running back Jonathan Stewart went home to visit family and friends. Others stayed in Eugene to relax and watch college football. Some of those that did found themselves sitting back watching games and were witness to what some people are calling the biggest upset in college football history when Stanford beat USC 24-23.
As a result, the Ducks found themselves up five spots to No. 9 in the nation, right ahead of the Trojans.
“That was pretty unreal,” center Max Unger said. “They can be beaten but it doesn’t matter because they’re still going to be really good.
“It’s great that Stanford won but it doesn’t change a whole lot.”
Unger’s assessment echoed what everybody else on the team was saying: None of that matters right now for the Ducks (4-1 overall, 1-1 Pacific-10 Conference). Their focus remains on Washington State (2-4, 0-3) even if USC’s defeat is in the back of their minds. They’re setting out this week to prove that they belong as the ninth-best team in the nation despite losing their last game in the final seconds against California. If they should be thinking about the game between Stanford and USC at all, it’ll be because Oregon doesn’t want to take any of its opponents lightly.
“We have to get back on the winning track. Every game in the conference is difficult and I will make sure our team is very aware of what occurred with Stanford and SC,” Oregon coach Mike Bellotti said.
Bellotti said being ranked in the top 10 isn’t meaningful at this point in the season because he believes that the final poll is the one that matters and because Oregon didn’t beat anybody last weekend.
“I think we got where we’re at not by playing a football game, so I think we have to validate just our own existence in a sense,” he said. “It’s not much fun on a Saturday when you don’t get to play.”
Not only do the Ducks have to establish themselves as the ninth-best team in the country, the have to prove they’re not going to suffer a collapse like last year’s 3-6 finish. And they have to do it against an opponent that acted as a spoiler to the Ducks last season when Washington State gave Oregon its second loss of the season in a 34-23 game in Pullman, Wash.
And although the Cougars sit at the bottom of the conference standings, Bellotti still sees the potential for them to lash out the way they did against No. 14 Arizona State last week. The Sun Devils won 23-20 after they made a field goal in the final minute and the Cougars missed a field goal to tie it with a few seconds remaining.
“They’re coming off their best game of the season in terms of the way they played on defense,” Bellotti said. “They played with energy and conviction.”
The defense, however, isn’t the only thing the Ducks need to worry about. Cougar quarterback Alex Brink leads the Pac-10 in total offense per game and has a bevy of talented receivers. Brink, a Eugene native, will be playing in Autzen Stadium for the first time as the starting quarterback for Washington State and should be pumped to play in front of what could have been a home crowd for him had Oregon offered him a scholarship.
“He’s a good quarterback. He can run and pass and that’s always bad for a defense,” rover Patrick Chung said. “And they have three good receivers so we’re going to have our hands full.”
Dixon sits right behind Brink in the total offense per-game category, averaging 309.2 yards. Just as Oregon’s quick to praise Brink, calling him the centerpiece of the offense, the same can be said about Dixon.
Washington State coach Bill Doba called Dixon a “doggone good quarterback who runs really well.”
The Cougars should fear Dixon and the rest of the Ducks’ offense because they are statistically the worst defense in the Pac-10, allowing 34.2 points per game and is ninth in the conference in total yards surrendered with 430.3 per game.
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