Please allow me to lose track of reality for a second and dream about the upcoming football season.
Not only will it be good to have the sport back in September after its annual hiatus, but even better, there is a good chance the Ducks could live up to expectations this season.
Sure, there are question marks – can the defensive line stay healthy and stop the run better, will Dixon melt down again like he seemed to do last year, and can the Ducks find an answer to the place-kicking and punting problems that arose last season. But for every question, players and coaches were quick with a response at practice on Media Day Monday.
Dixon suffering from missing voluntary summer practices, opting instead to chase curveballs? He looked sharp in drills. The defensive line? Bellotti and Aliotti believe they won’t get decimated by injuries, and their rotation will be able to fill the gaps left by a lack of a marquee player. Linebackers filling the huge shoes of players like Blair Phillips and Brent Haberly? John Bacon (and his fresh Mr. T mohawk) has stepped up, and A.J. Tuitele and Kwame Agyeman are returning seniors with something to prove.
Kicking might still be an issue, and the Ducks need a designated punt returner to step from the shadows, but they still have four weeks before the first game of the year.
Excuse me for drinking the Kool-Aid so early (and allow me to remain skeptical from a distance), but this might be a repeat of 2005, when the stars aligned and the Ducks returned from a weak-kneed sub-.500 2004 season to a 10-2 record. Remember, one of those two losses came from the Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart-led USC Trojans, and the other was an incredibly close bowl loss to Oklahoma that the Sooners didn’t actually win.
Take a look at the schedule, and note who visits Autzen: California, USC, Arizona State, and Oregon State – all teams ranked ahead of the Ducks in the preseason Pacific-10 Conference media poll. The only preseason conference top five team the Ducks have to play on the road is UCLA in November in the next-to-last regular season game.
So much is made of Autzen Stadium providing such a home field advantage that it scared Lloyd Carr and his Michigan team when they played in 2003. If the Ducks are to brag about a home field advantage, it had better come into play this season – if Oregon has any chance at sneaking into the top echelon of the conference this season, teams like Cal and USC need to feel very disturbed by playing at Autzen. Considering that the Ducks’ greatest woes came on the road last year (nationally televised losses at Cal and USC, a blowout to Washington State at always tricky Martin Stadium) and a home loss to Arizona came at a tepid (and water-logged) Autzen Stadium, the stadium must be rocking for the Ducks to make the most of their chances.
That second game on the schedule, too, really is a no-lose situation as well – what’s the worst that can come from being the underdog at Michigan? If the Ducks can pull out a win, confidence could skyrocket; if they lose, well, they were supposed to, right?
It’s that backs-against-the-wall mentality that the Ducks had in 2005, too. It came up when Kellen Clemens suffered the season-ending injury against Arizona, which took a late touchdown by Haberly on a turnover to seal the game. It came up in the pouring rain in overtime against Cal. It came in the late dramatics at Washington State. Bellotti’s Ducks seem to do well when the odds are against them, and when games are close, the teams seem to go above and beyond. Remember Oklahoma? Forget the onside kick, remember Dixon’s touchdown drives?
Glimpses of brilliance last year – Dixon against Oklahoma, Williams at Arizona State, the defensive line when healthy, and Stewart in the spring game (including his 40-yard circus run that looked like something John Madden wishes he could draw) – give hope for sustained excellence this year.
Then again, this is why fall camp is so great – there’s always next year, and it’s right around the corner.