When the No. 14 Oregon Ducks take the field Saturday night against the Arizona State Sun Devils, there will be a lot of story lines to look out for.
Will reinstated running back LeGarrette Blount play? Can the Ducks bounce back from a horrible 51-42 loss to Stanford? Will the Sun Devils shock the conference after narrowly missing out last week in a 14-9 loss to USC?
It’s a lot on the plate for most fans, who are anxious to see whether or not the Ducks can win their first Pacific-10 Conference title since 2001 and earn a berth in the Rose Bowl. Especially because Oregon’s defense, which once looked nearly impenetrable to start conference play, all of a sudden has a few chinks in the armor.
“We know our mistakes, we watched the film,” senior safety T.J. Ward said. “There’s nothing we can do about that game, it’s just about getting ready for Arizona State and making sure they don’t do what Stanford did to us.”
Stanford running back Toby Gerhart gashed Oregon for 223 yards and three touchdowns and the Cardinal were effective at finding gaps in Oregon’s coverage.
“We just missed gaps sometimes,” Ward said of the effort against Stanford. “We didn’t have people in the right positions. It wasn’t that they physically ran over us, it was more of that we weren’t in the rightposition sometimes.”
But the Ducks are coming back to Autzen, where they have yet to lose this year. It’s something the entire team is excited for, and they say sometimes there’s nothing that cures a bad loss on the road like a party on a Saturday night with 59,000 of their closest friends.
“It’s the warmth of our friends,” senior tight end Ed Dickson said. “We know we have to do battle. Just to come home and get the embrace of our crowd is going to be nice.”
The Ducks won’t exactly be facing a cupcake, however. This late in the season, any team in the conference is dangerous, and the Sun Devils are no exception. Armed with the Pac-10’s best defense, which held USC’s offense to just 14 points, the Sun Devils look to hand Oregon its second straight loss and further muddle the title race.
“They’re fast, they’re physical, they’re a veteran team,” offensive coordinator Mark Helfrich said. “They have a lot of guys who played a ton. (The defense) is a chore. SC had 12 first downs and you don’t really need to say anything else.”
Helfrich says against a defense like that, the Ducks need to be as sharp as ever. They know what ASU is going to do for the most part in terms of coverages, it’s just beating those coverages.
Dickson added that offense is rolling, and he thinks the team is up to the challenge.
“It’s a pretty solid group of guys,” Dickson said. “We don’t sleep on them at all. They have the No. 1 rated defense in the Pac-10 for a reason. It will be a good challenge for us this weekend and whenever the Duck offense gets challenged we usually rise to the occasion.”
Oregon will have one more weapon this week, although it is unlikely how much he will play — if at all. Blount, fresh off an eight-game suspension for punching Byron Hout of Boise State, has practiced all week with the offense and taken reps as the fourth and fifth string back.
But his teammates aren’t concerned with his playing time, or changing the dynamic of the offense with how redshirt freshman running back LaMichael James is playing; they’re just happy he’s back and the Boise State fiasco is behind him.
“He’s been the same guy since day one,” junior quarterback Jeremiah Masoli said. “He’s become a better person for what happened but out on the field he looks the same and he’s going to be a big impact player.”
So for now, everything is still in Oregon’s hands. Win out, and the trip to Pasadena is still reserved for the team. The Ducks know this, and that’s why each game to them is even bigger in their eyes.
“We still control our own destiny,” Ward said. “We win out and we are still going to the Rose Bowl and we’ll still have a good season. We’re just focused on Arizona State and we can’t lose another one.”
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Plot twists abound vs. ASU
Daily Emerald
November 11, 2009
Courtesey of Matt Pavelek – The State Press
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