Without a game to focus on this Saturday, Oregon is using its bye week to let its younger players take more practice repetitions, giving veterans the physical break they’ve been looking for since the first game on Aug. 30. It’s also been a time for players to evaluate the team’s performance in the first half of the season, and by their attitude, they haven’t been pleased with their 5-2 record.
“We shouldn’t have lost to USC 44-10, I don’t think we should have lost to them, period, anyway,” running back LeGarrette Blount said. “We came out in the first half and then I don’t know what happened. As for the Boise State game, we should never have been behind in the first place.
“We haven’t gotten our best rhythm yet. Nobody has seen our offense at full blast yet, not even us.”
The Ducks held off a resurgent UCLA team 31-24 Saturday night, showing their familiar success running the ball but also revealing signs of a passing game that will use the next week and a half to smooth out its mistakes, such as having only one passing yard in the second half against the Bruins.
Enter quarterback Justin Roper, who head coach Mike Bellotti said he wanted to use last week but chose not to when UCLA’s defense continued to allow the more-mobile Jeremiah Masoli lanes to run through. Roper said he is fully healthy after injuring the MCL in his left knee during overtime at Purdue on Sept. 13.
“Everything’s an evaluation, no matter what you do,” Roper said before Tuesday’s practice.
Roper said he wasn’t troubled about not getting into Saturday’s game, considering how the Ducks were playing.
“As long as we’re winning the game there’s really no reason for me to go in,” Roper said. “We lead the whole game so it’s not really my place to say, ‘We’re winning but I should play.’ Even if the opposite was happening and we weren’t winning and we weren’t moving the ball or anything like that, it’s still not my place to say, ‘Oh, I should be in.’”
One of the players he could be passing to in the foreseeable future is Chris Harper, who Bellotti moved this week to a full-time role as wide receiver. Up to this point, Harper had been a quarterback who had flirted with playing receiver. Harper made a diving 24-yard touchdown catch at the end of the second quarter Saturday.
Wide receiver and teammate Jeff Maehl said Harper’s transition has been seamless so far.
“It just shows how good of an athlete and how versatile he is,” Maehl said.
Harper is one of the young players who will receive the bulk of this week’s practice time. The players are also expected to hold a young players’ scrimmage on Thursday that will provide their spotlight of the season. It gives time for the veterans to become coaches and the young players open chunks of time to get better. For both units, the week is important for gathering a solid state of mind entering their next game, Oct. 25 at Arizona State.
“It’s more of a mental thing I think,” Maehl said. “You’ve got to go in and dial things in and then, as we get to next week, start to get the legs back under you again.”
Andrew Greif
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