Run, run, run, ’til your Aggie takes your two feet away.
That was the strategy of the Oregon football team as they beat Utah State 38-21 on Saturday in Logan, Utah. Senior tailback Maurice Morris broke out for a career-high 175 yards in his first big game of the year, which was the first time Oregon’s had a 100-yard rusher this season. Amazingly, backup Onterrio Smith nearly eclipsed the century mark, finishing with 98 yards on the ground.
“The O-line did a great job. The holes were huge,” Oregon quarterback Joey Harrington told the Associated Press. “This is a good confidence builder that we can run the ball now.”
Harrington was not overshadowed by the running game in any sense. The senior signal-caller threw 17 passes for 261 yards, passed for two touchdowns and ran for another. But the focus of many in Logan was Morris and the Oregon running game, which struggled in earlier games against Wisconsin, Utah and Southern California.
Getting Morris on track was one the biggest concerns coming into Saturday’s game. A second-team all-Pac-10 back last year, Morris averaged only 54 yards per game before Saturday’s running explosion. Smith, in limited action, was averaging 42.3 yards per game.
Before Saturday’s game, head coach Mike Bellotti said there was “tons of room for improvement” in the running game.
Then the runners improved Saturday. Morris asserted himself early, with help from the offensive line. By the time the game was over, the two running backs had a combined 273 yards on 37 rushes and two touchdowns.
“Morris had a couple runs that I think will go down in history,” Bellotti said Sunday after watching the video tape. “I’m surprised people haven’t been awed by them more. They were just flat-out awesome.”
Oregon set the tone early by giving to Morris on the first drive of the game. In the second quarter, Morris helped Oregon to its first touchdown with two rushes for 20 yards at the start of the drive.
In the fourth quarter, Morris put the game away for good with a career-long 69-yard touchdown run with 8:19 on the clock. That big gain came four minutes after Smith’s four-yard touchdown run put Oregon up 31-21.
“We ran the ball well in the second half and that helped us out,” Harrington said.
Harrington also rushed for a touchdown in the second quarter. The signal-caller ended up with 14 yards rushing in the game.
The Oregon rushing corps lost a valuable member, Allan Amundson, to injury early in the game. Amundson was on crutches after the game, but did not break a bone. He will be out for two to six weeks.