Beaten by Arizona’s “Desert Swarm” defense and facing one last charge by the dangerous Wildcat offense, the Oregon football team rested its Rose Bowl hopes on the team’s most reliable force.
Desert Swarm, meet the Green Swarm.
The Oregon ‘D’ took Arizona’s offense by storm under the Saturday night sky, holding it scoreless in the second half and putting the brakes on a last-minute drive to preserve the Ducks’ 19th-straight win at Autzen Stadium, 14-10, in front of another sellout crowd of 45,950.
Oregon’s offense, which tallied an average 428 yards total offense through its first six games, mustered just 260 yards total against Arizona (3-1 Pacific-10 Conference, 5-2 overall).
But that didn’t matter on a night when the Wildcats were held to 217 yards of total offense.
“We talked about it before the game, about how everything is ordained, and we believe that — we believe that we were going to come out here and beat these guys today,” defensive end Saul Patu said. “[Our offense] not moving the ball was fine with us — if that’s the way it’s supposed to happen, that’s the way it’s supposed to happen.”
The victory gave Oregon (4-0, 6-1) sole possession of the Pac-10 lead and the inside track to the Rose Bowl.
“We always think about the Rose Bowl, but we have to think about it in terms of the next game and one game at a time,” Oregon head coach Mike Bellotti said. “There are no gimmies in this conference. I think this is as balanced as a conference from top-to-bottom as there is.
“Now that we’ve done a good job at putting ourselves in the drivers’ seat, we’ve also made that bulls-eye on our backs a little bit bigger.”
Arizona quarterback Ortege Jenkins had one last chance to lead his team to victory when the Wildcats began the game’s final drive at their own 10-yard line with two minutes, 34 seconds remaining.
A delay-of-game penalty moved the Wildcats back to their own five-yard line, but two plays later, Jenkins connected on a 19-yard pass to receiver Brad Brennan. A quarterback keeper and another pass to Brennan moved the ball to the 48-yard line for another first down, and the ensuing three plays led to a fourth-and-one at the Oregon 46. With 45 seconds left, Jenkins kept the ball and lunged forward for a three-yard gain.
Arizona used its final four attempts to launch the ball into the end zone, and the first three were blocked away by safety Ryan Mitchell, cornerback Rashad Bauman and cornerback Steve Smith.
In a last-second, hail-Mary attempt to win the game, Jenkins lofted a high-arching pass toward three Arizona receivers in the end zone as time expired, but Mitchell was there to knock it away.
Moments after the ball hit the turf, the field was flooded with thousands of celebrating fans.
“It’s always tough with these two teams because both programs have a lot of pride,” Arizona defensive end Joe Tafoya said. “Everybody’s out there playing hard. This was the best team we’ve played. We came in here knowing it was going to be a tough team to play but they were just the better team tonight.”
Oregon’s offense has struggled at times this season, but so far, either the passing game or the running game has been strong enough to bury opponents.
However, nothing seemed to work against the Wildcats.
Ranked fifth in the nation when stopping the run, the Wildcats kept Oregon from establishing its running game. Maurice Morris managed 114 yards on 34 carries, with one of those carries accounting for 19 yards.
Arizona also contained Duck quarterback Joey Harrington, who completed just 9-of-22 passes, despite the Wildcats having the No. 9 passing defense in the Pac-10 heading into the game.
“In weeks past, I’d come in here and be a little disappointed in how we played because I thought we’d missed some opportunities,” Harrington said. “But this week we played tough, and we played hard every time trying to move the chains. That was just a very physical defense, and we have to give them credit.”
Fortunately for Oregon, Harrington connected two of his passes to receiver Marshaun Tucker for touchdowns in the first half. The Ducks’ first touchdown capped a seven-play drive on their second possession of the game.
In the second quarter, Oregon’s second touchdown drive began at the Wildcats’ 22-yard line after an interception by free safety Rasuli Webster.
But after taking a 14-0 lead on their second touchdown, the Ducks struggled to move the chains downfield, and it soon became clear that Oregon wouldn’t run away with the game.
Jenkins found running back Larry Croom wide open for the 42-yard touchdown play midway through the second quarter, and the Wildcats scored on a field goal in the final 30 seconds of the half after blocking Kurtis Doerr’s punt and recovering at Oregon’s 14-yard line.
The Ducks had a chance to potentially put the game away when a penalty advanced the ball to Arizona’s 14-yard line. But a costly false start penalty moved the Ducks back five yards, and then Morris was tackled for a loss of five.
On fourth-and-16, place-kicker Josh Frankel missed a 37-yard field goal attempt that would have made it a seven-point game.