With the abundance of opinions, analysis and inside knowledge people seem to have about the upcoming football season, the Oregon football team should have a good idea of what to expect in its opening game against Houston.
The problem is, however, the Ducks (7-6 overall, 4-5 Pacific-10 Conference in 2006) don’t even know who the starting quarterback for the Cougars (10-4, 7-1 Conference USA 2006) is going to be.
But that’s likely part of the strategy employed by Houston coach Art Briles. He’ll keep Oregon coach Mike Bellotti guessing by revealing nothing until the first snap of the game.
“We’re not really sure what Houston is going to do,” Bellotti said. “I do know they’re going to run a lot of different plays.”
It certainly makes Bellotti’s job that much tougher because he considers the quarterback the focal point of the Houston offense.
“The key to Houston is their quarterback,” Bellotti said. “Whoever plays quarterback, if they’re the same caliber as (former Houston quarterback) Kevin Kolb, it’s going to be a heck of a football game. If not, obviously it’s to our advantage. Everything they do is quarterback driven. I mean, they run every trick play but the quarterback is the trigger man.”
Kolb, who was drafted in the second round of this year’s NFL Draft by the Philadelphia Eagles, will be replaced by either sophomore quarterback Blake Joseph, who threw a combined 56 yards in two games last year, or redshirt freshman Case Keenum.
The Ducks, however, won’t keep their quarterback situation up in the air. They want to let opponents and fans know that senior Dennis Dixon is the starter. With as much controversy as the quarterback rotation with fellow senior Brady Leaf created last year, and with Dixon playing Minor League Baseball during the summer, Bellotti has had to constantly affirm Dixon’s foothold atop the depth chart.
“Dennis Dixon, as I said, was the starter going into spring, the starter coming out of spring, coming into fall camp, coming out of fall camp, and he’s performed very well,” Bellotti said.
With Dixon leading the way, Bellotti believes the Oregon defense should be well prepared to face whatever Houston can throw at them because the Ducks’ version of the spread offense offers plenty of variables that may reflect some of the Cougars’ strategies.
“They run some elements of the option, they run a lot of screens, they run a spread offense, but they do a lot more. They have a million formations and a million different plays. They barely repeat a play in a game,” Bellotti said. “It’s just a matter of how well they do.”
In the 2005 season-opener Houston did well early on as the Ducks struggled to contain the Houston offense allowing 21 first-quarter points while giving up 554 total yards in the game. Kolb threw for 312 yards but had two interceptions and engineered only a field-goal scoring drive in the fourth quarter after the initial outburst. Though this year’s Oregon defense won’t be facing a quarterback with as much experience in the Houston offense as Kolb, it still won’t be an easy task to shut it down.
The primary reason: Senior running back Anthony Alridge. Last year he led the nation with an average of 10.1 yards per carry and finished the season with 956 yards. Midway through the 2006 season, Alridge switched from part-time receiver to the starting running back. In his sophomore season Alridge caught his first career pass against the Ducks and proceeded to run it into the endzone for a 62-yard score. He finished the game with 103 yards on three receptions.
“I think he’s very dangerous. He’s an all-purpose back,” Bellotti said. “He can catch the ball, he runs the ball. He’s got power and quickness and their offense is so deceptive that it’s hard to determine a pure running formation from them.”
And with the health of the defense in question, Bellotti already sees the problems that his defense will be facing come Saturday.
“Defending Houston with a healthy, experienced team is a challenge,” Bellotti said. “Defending Houston with an inexperienced, unhealthy team, to a degree which is what we are this week, is a greater challenge.”
Despite it all, Oregon is eager to get it’s season underway and erase images of last year’s four-game losing streak that left doubts about what the team is capable of this year.
“It’s nice to finally get a chance to play another team, figure out how good you are and what you need to work on and what you’re going to do better this year,” Bellotti said. “We can be pretty good but I think we have to prove that to ourselves in the first game.”
Proving something to themselves isn’t the only thing the Ducks have to do. After being predicted to finish sixth in the Pac-10, Oregon believes it has something to prove to the entire nation.
“We always have something to prove no matter where we stand,” junior linebacker John Bacon said. “Oregon’s best teams were never rated (highly in the preseason). We’re just ready to go out there and prove a lot of people wrong.”
Until then, the Ducks and their fans can only sit in anticipation for what’s to come Saturday.
“I feel excited,” junior running back Jonathan Stewart said. “It’s close. It’s coming. Everybody’s excited.”
[email protected]
Dixon confirmed as the starter for the Ducks
Daily Emerald
August 31, 2007
Amber Mees
0
More to Discover