Kellen Clemens went from whipping boy to poster child in a matter of months, but as his senior season at Oregon wraps up, thoughts of what could have been loom large.
Records would have been broken and awards won. Instead, Clemens spent the final month of the regular season on the sidelines after sustaining a season-ending spiral fracture in the fibula of his left leg and soft tissue damage in the left ankle during an Oct. 22 game at Arizona.
Clemens was horsecollared, which is illegal in the NFL, and knew there was a bone break as soon as he hit the grass.
“I knew it was broken, but I thought well maybe I could make it back for the bowl game,” Clemens said. “The emotions came Sunday when the x-rays came in.”
The senior was lost for the season.
“It was real hard,” Oregon receiver Demetrius Williams said. “He’s like a brother. You watch him go down and it ends like that for him. It’s kind of difficult to watch that happen. You just want to make the best of it, try to do the best you can, not just for you but for him also.”
The normal healing rate for such a serious injury is four to six months.
“Normal isn’t what we are shooting for,” Clemens said. “I’m five weeks ahead of schedule and I am six weeks in right now.”
Clemens is scheduled for another surgery on Jan. 2 and should be able to start walking without crutches afterward. A month later he should be able to run, while it will take a second month before his leg and ankle are close to 100 percent.
Since his on-field time has been cut short, Clemens feels his role is mostly moral support and to provide guidance for the new quarterbacks, which began soon after the trainers removed his cleats following the injury.
“(I) went into the locker room to get it wrapped up and then one of the trainers came in and said, ‘We need you out here to signal because (fellow quarterback) Dennis (Dixon) just got his bell rung,’” Clemens said.
Clemens has continued to support and teach, while the new starting quarterbacks have led the Ducks to three wins and to finish the regular season ranked fifth in the country with a 10-1 record (7-1 Pacific-10 Conference).
During the span that Clemens has been on the sidelines, the biggest controversy has been whether Oregon will receive one of the two at-large bids to a Bowl Championship Series game. The Ducks were one of three teams, along with two-loss teams Notre Dame and Ohio State, up for major consideration.
“I think we deserve to (go),” Clemens said Friday while wearing a jacket with a Fiesta Bowl emblem on it, which he won as part of the 2001-02 Oregon Fiesta Bowl champions. “The business and the politics will keep us out. If we get selected for the Holiday Bowl instead we are going to go there and be happy to hand someone else a loss and get to 11-1.”
Clemens feels that last season, Oregon’s first ending with a losing record since 1993, hurt the Ducks in people’s minds entering this season.
“We probably lost some respect in various corners of the country,” Clemens said of last season’s 5-6 finish. “To be honest I don’t understand how the whole thing works. I just know that Notre Dame has lost two games and we’ve lost one to the No. 1 team in the country. It doesn’t make much sense to me. And we are ranked ahead of them in the BCS.
“It’s just a matter of deserving to be (in a BCS bowl),” added Clemens, who grew up a Notre Dame fan.
Unfortunately for Clemens and the Ducks, the Fighting Irish and Buckeyes claimed automatic at-large spots in the BCS, eliminating any chance the Ducks had of being selected.
Another thing out of Clemens’ control is his legacy. The fall graduate wants to be known as a “team guy.”
“If you want to sprinkle in a little bit of a guy who played hard and left it on the field,” he said. “That’s enough. I mean, you look at the records and all of the stuff that I was close to, but close doesn’t cut it for a legacy. If I get my name mentioned with some of the greats that have played here I will be content.”
Oregon offensive coordinator Gary Crowton notes Clemens’ work ethic and toughness as outstanding; However, entering his final season Clemens hadn’t found many victories. Before the season began he had a career record of 13-11, while this season he was 7-1 as a starter.
“I wouldn’t have traded, I guess, any of it, including this,” Clemens said pointing at his protective boot. “It’s been up and down. It’s been good times, bad times.
“There has been a lot of growth. I guess for me as a person it has been a very good experience.”
Rewriting the record books
Clemens found the victories as well as numerous records this season. He was also on pace to break every significant quarterback record at Oregon.
“Barring injury, if I would have kept going, or even slacked off some, I would have probably finished at top,” Clemens said. “They were secondary, but I’m not going to sit here and lie to you that I didn’t know about them or that I wasn’t discouraged.
“I can’t get them. I was close. It’s apparent, I think, to most people that I was going to get them. There’s no sense in saying ‘what if’ in this deal. It is what it is and move on.”
Several records he would have likely broken include total offense, touchdowns thrown, and passing yardage. One record he did set was completion percentage.
The records at Oregon are safe from Clemens, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t get a scare. They got same one that anyone standing in the way of Clemens will receive.

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