After No. 15 Oregon came back from a 17-7 halftime hole to beat No. 13 Oklahoma State 42-31 on Dec. 30 in the Holiday Bowl, Mike Bellotti sat at the interview podium underneath San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium with Jeremiah Masoli and Walter Thurmond III, and with visible tears in his eyes, said it was one of his most satisfying wins in his 14-year tenure as Oregon head coach.
Now the question becomes, was it his last?
“That’s a great way for anybody to go out,” he said, sidestepping the question from the media.
Oregon, with a shot at ending the season ranked in the top 10 nationally after scoring 35 second-half points to outperform Oklahoma State’s own explosive offense, ends the season 10-3, only the fourth time in the school’s history the team has won 10 games. All four times have been during Bellotti’s tenure.
The Ducks came back to win four straight games after losing to California on Nov. 1 in Berkeley, Calif., a loss that dropped them out of the conference title race.
After showing its rust in the first half, Oregon piled up 565 yards of total offense, including 307 on the ground with five touchdowns. All helped the Duck senior class forget the last-minute loss to Oklahoma in the same game in 2005.
“It erases every kind of bad memory I’ve had in the Holiday Bowl my freshman year against Oklahoma,” four-year starter center Max Unger said.
Jeremiah Masoli’s 106 rushing yards helped him finish with 718 yards this season, breaking the quarterback rushing record at Oregon, held by Reggie Ogburn since 1979.
Backfield teammates Jeremiah Johnson and LeGarrette Blount became only the second 1,000-yard tandem in school history by virtue of Blount’s 29-yard hurdle and stiff-arm filled touchdown run with 3:01 left in the game that sealed the win and gave him 1,002 yards on the season.
“We never panicked,” Blount said.
Johnson’s 119 yards helped him finish with 1,201 yards on the season, the sixth-best season in UO history. He also set the Holiday Bowl record for longest offensive play in the 31-year history of the annual game when he ran for 76 yards and a score in the first quarter.
High schoolers can begin to commit starting Feb. 4, and a possible answer to when offensive coordinator Chip Kelly will take over as head coach could be revealed during that stretch.
Despite Bellotti’s emotional postgame press conference, filled with one-liners and a relaxed look, he said he will tell recruits that he will most likely not be head coach their entire four-year career, instead succeeding Pat Kilkenny as athletic director as part of a succession plan outlined in December.
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