Kevin Mitchell said he expects to have a lot of friends and family at Saturday’s game.
It’s a return home for freshman Kyle Weatherspoon, who said the first thing he wants to do is “see my mom.”
Mitchell, Weatherspoon and a handful of other Ducks will get a chance to go home to Southern California when Oregon takes on UCLA Saturday at 12:30 p.m. It is the third straight season in which the Ducks will play at the Rose Bowl, yet another scheduling quirk in the Pacific-10 Conference.
“I don’t like the three-times-in-a-row thing,” Oregon head coach Mike Bellotti said. “But I understand the reasons to allow the geographic rivalries to continue. I was in favor of that. I don’t understand why in all our infinite wisdom it has seemingly gone on for a long time.”
Oregon has just three players that actually hail from Los Angeles — cornerbacks Marques Binns and Steven Moore and defensive end Darius Sanders — but there are myriad players who came to Oregon from the region. That includes quarterback Jason Fife, a native of Lake Elsinore; offensive lineman Adam Snyder, who hails from Whittier, which is approximately 20 miles outside of Los Angeles; and Long Beach’s Samie Parker.
With temperatures expected to be at a high of roughly 70 degrees, it will be a true homecoming for these players.

“It’s exciting to get to go home and see family and friends,” Mitchell said. “It’s exciting, and you really couldn’t ask for any better of a situation.”
The Ducks, though, will be all business when they step onto the Rose Bowl turf. Oregon and UCLA have seen their last two games decided by a combined total of two points, both of which were Duck wins.
Last season, it was a missed field goal by UCLA kicker Chris Griffith that gave the Ducks the 31-30 win. The year before was strikingly similar, with Griffith again missing a field goal in the waning minutes of the game. This one was a 50-yarder — 2002’s was a 46-yarder — and the Ducks completed a fourth-quarter rally for the 21-20 win.
Only once since the 1989 season has either team defeated the other by more than 10 points. That happened in 2000 when Oregon won, 29-10, at Autzen Stadium.
“I just think we’ll get their best,” Mitchell said. “They’ve lost two in a row. I think that they’ll come out and give us their best, and we’ll try to give them ours.”
Both teams know bowl invitations are at the forefront of the game. The Ducks and Bruins both enter the game with six wins, which guarantees they will be at least .500 when the season ends. That, however, will not guarantee a postseason.
The Bruins are one game ahead of the Ducks in the Pac-10 standings, but UCLA is slumping. It has lost two in a row — an upset by Stanford and a blowout loss to Washington State — and it is hungry for its seventh win of the season.

“They didn’t play real well in the last few games,” Oregon wide receiver Demetrius Williams said. “They’ve had a few letdowns. I see them as a real good team, and it will be a challenge for us.”
At Oregon’s weekly video session on Monday, players saw UCLA running back Maurice Drew, a freshman who has come on to lead the Bruins in their ground game. They saw two quarterbacks — Matt Moore and Drew Olson — who have virtually shared the starting quarterback role.
They saw a defense that is ranked second in the Pac-10. That’s a defense that has the conference’s leading tackler, Brandon Chillar, and its sacks leader, Dave Ball.
“I look at (UCLA’s) roster, and it’s amazing the number of people we recruited, offered and did not get,” Bellotti said. “I think that it really doesn’t matter how UCLA’s been playing or how we’ve been playing. It’s very important for us to show well.”
For some Ducks, it will be their first chance to go home. For others, it will be their last game in an Oregon uniform in Southern California.
Oregon won’t be back to the Rose Bowl against the Bruins until the 2007 season.
The Ducks want to make a lasting impression.