Chip Kelly knew what to expect when redshirt freshman Bryan Bennett entered the game on Saturday.
That calm and poise Bennett showed in the second half while filling in for Darron Thomas? Kelly had seen it every day at practice for over a year.
Bennett knew exactly what he was doing and proved it en route to a 41-27 victory.
“There was no panic,” Kelly said. “I think (Bennett) knows what we ask our quarterback to do. You don’t have to make things happen, you just have to let it happen.”
During his first drive, with the Ducks trailing 24-21 in the opening minutes of the third quarter, Bennett coolly led the offense 68 yards down the field, with true freshman De’Anthony Thomas breaking a 29-yard run and eventually punching it in from three yards out to retake the lead.
After a quick three-and-out from Arizona State’s side, Bennett once again marched up the field, this time to the tune of 88 yards in just over one minute of playing time. The running lanes were open, and the Encino, Calif., native seized his chance, bursting for rushes of 36 and 18 yards before junior running back Kenjon Barner capped the drive with a five-yard touchdown run.
All of a sudden, in its usual blink-of-the-eye fashion, Oregon had taken a commanding 35-24 lead, and all with Darron Thomas being treated in the locker room.
“Once I saw him go down, I knew it was my time to step up,” Bennett said. “My time to go and lead this offense.”
In the end, Bennett completed just two of five passes but ran for 65 yards on five carries and — most importantly — maintained the flow of the offense. After gaining 245 yards of total offense in the first half under Thomas, the Ducks kept the pace with 285 more in the second half. The ground game, in particular, erupted for 263 yards under Bennett after being held to a pedestrian 58 in the first two quarters.
“Kenjon and Bryan are really good players,” left guard Carson York said. “We are lucky to have such depth on the team. A lot of things didn’t go right or well, but we still continued to play our game.”
For Bennett, it was simply a matter of keeping his emotions in check.
“The main thing to do is just stay poised,” Bennett said. “Because it’s on your shoulders now, and you gotta keep going and move the offense.”
Indeed, it was a sense of composure that even Kelly couldn’t have guaranteed before the game.
“That’s the one thing I didn’t know going in,” Kelly said. “Because we’re such a young team, when we get into adverse situations, how will we respond? And those guys did a great job.”
York, for his part, has watched Bennett in practice for more than a year now. Throughout his redshirt season last year, and as a backup in 2011, Bennett has earned the trust of Oregon veterans.
“We have all confidence in the kid,” York said. “And we’ve known that for two years; we’re really lucky to have a really good backup … Bryan came in there and took over the show.”
Darron Thomas, for his part, returned to the sideline with a brace on his left knee and asked Kelly to be sent back in. Kelly denied his request, and Thomas was left to provide emotional support for his teammates.
“DT told me to take the team and lead them,” wide receiver Josh Huff said. “Every time I went to the sideline I would ask him what I could do better, and he told me. He kept telling me to keep my head up, lift the team and stay calm.”
Thomas claimed after the game that he could have returned, but Kelly could rebuke his star’s pleas with a certain sense of security in the back of his mind.
The new kid had things under control.