Take a deep breath now because you won’t be able to exhale for another two months.
After opening the 2002 season with four straight home games, the Oregon football squad takes this week off before the real fun begins. Pacific-10 Conference play kicks off for the Ducks with its first road game of the season at Arizona on Oct. 5, the start of eight straight conference games.
And just like 2001, nothing’s going to come easy for anybody this year.
“If any team in our conference had gone undefeated, they would have been in the national championship game,” Oregon head coach Mike Bellotti told the Associated Press about the 2001 Pac-10 season. “If any team this year goes undefeated, they would deserve it. We beat each other up.”
Quarterback Jason Gesser, a Heisman candidate from preseason Pac-10-favorite Washington State, said the Pac-10 is the toughest conference in the country.
“I think anybody’s the team to beat in this conference,” Gesser told the AP. “I don’t know of another conference that’s like ours.”
Following their bye week, the Ducks’ first conference matchup is in Tucson, where the Ducks trampled Arizona 63-28 last season — the most points the Wildcats allowed in a half-century.
The following week, on Oct. 12, Oregon faces what will be its first big test of the year in UCLA at the Rose Bowl, the site of the Ducks’ 21-20 thriller last season. Joey Harrington led Oregon to another fourth-quarter comeback in that win as UCLA missed a 50-yard field-goal attempt in the final seconds.
On Oct. 19, the Ducks return to Eugene for the start of three consecutive home games, beginning with Arizona State. Led by Keenan Howry’s school-record four touchdown receptions, Oregon torched the Sun Devils at Autzen this past year, 42-24.
Then things really start to get interesting for the Ducks, as they welcome back USC. If you remember, Jared Siegel, then a freshman, drilled a 32-yard field goal with 14 seconds left to give the Ducks a 24-22 win.
Don’t think the Trojans will forget the Oregon billboard just outside the USC campus, either. And then there’s the incident of the pregame scuffle prior to last year’s game.
Not to be forgotten is Oregon’s 33-30 triple-overtime win at Autzen. In short, don’t leave this game early.
In another great rematch, Oregon looks to avenge a 49-42 loss to Stanford — which spoiled Oregon’s national championship hopes last year — when the Cardinal come back to town on Nov. 2. The Ducks blew a 14-point fourth-quarter lead in 2001, in large part because of two blocked punts.”What we’ve got to do this year is control our own destiny,” Howry said. “The way to get there is to win every game.”
The remaining three weeks should not be missed.
For the third straight season, the Ducks head to Pullman to face Washington State, which looks to end a four-game losing skid to Oregon. The Ducks needed a last-second defensive stop to pull off a 24-17 win at a chilly Martin Stadium last year.
In his only start of 2001, Onterrio Smith ran for a school-record 285 yards (in just three quarters nonetheless) against the Cougs.
Another doozy is sure to follow when the Ducks and Huskies meet for the first time in two years. Washington comes to Eugene on Nov. 16 to try to regain its Northwest supremacy.
Then, the game of all games: Civil War. The Ducks wrap up their first 12-game regular season with a Nov. 23 trip to Corvallis, where they have lost their last two meetings.
The downside for the Ducks’ 2002 schedule is that they do not face California, which was picked to finish last in the conference.