EL PASO, Texas — In the 50th and final game of his career, Samie Parker had his best game as a Duck.
Parker caught 16 passes for 200 yards and two touchdowns in Oregon’s 31-30 loss to Minnesota on Wednesday at the Sun Bowl. His performance cemented him as one of the most prolific players in Oregon’s history.
“You always want to go out the right way,” cornerback Steven Moore said. “He’s one of the best receivers I’ve ever seen. Hopefully he’ll get an opportunity at the national level and do it up there. I wish him nothing but the best.”
If Parker can impress NFL scouts like he did the fans at Sun Bowl Stadium, he will become a power player in the professional league.
Parker’s 16 receptions set an Oregon single-game record. The total gave him 77 on the season, also an Oregon record.
The accolades don’t stop there. Parker ended his career with 178 receptions, good for best in the program’s history. Finally, the 200 yards places him seventh all-time on Oregon’s single-game list.
That’s a long list of accomplishments.
“It was a pretty good performance, but it wasn’t good enough because we didn’t come up with a ‘W,’” Parker said.

Parker scored his first touchdown of the game with 8:45 left in the second quarter. With the Ducks at Minnesota’s 18-yard line, Clemens found the Long Beach, Calif., native with a pass to the corner of the end zone.
Parker’s second touchdown came with 3:09 left in the third. Reminiscent of a touchdown pass against Colorado in the 2001 Fiesta Bowl, Parker broke over the middle for a 40-yard touchdown strike.
“We knew one of their guys (cornerback Trumaine Banks) got sent home and they were moving a safety (Jason Isom) over there to play corner,” Parker said.
Isom was the unlucky recipient of attention from Oregon quarterback Kellen Clemens. The sophomore completed 32 of 42 pass attempts. Half of those, and more than half of his passing yardage (363), went to Parker.
“Samie just shook his defender a lot of times,” Clemens said. “He made some great catches today.”
Parker got off to an early start against Minnesota. He had six receptions in the first quarter and nine in the first half. Meanwhile, Clemens had completed 18 passes in the first half, five of which were destined for the hands of running back Terrence Whitehead.
It is the end of his Oregon career, but the potential beginning of a new career for Parker. The Honorable Mention Pac-10 receiver is an alternate for the Jan. 10 East-West Shrine Game in San Francisco.
From then on, he will attend the NFL’s scouting combine in hopes of landing attention for the June NFL draft. He should very well be a new member of former Oregon standouts that currently play in the NFL.
That number is at 15 and climbing.