This is a team that’s lost three of its last four games?
This is a team that’s dropped to 23rd in The Associated Press poll after being ranked as high as sixth? A team that won’t contend for a Pacific-10 Conference title after winning two in a row?
At the end of practice Tuesday night, the players of the Oregon football team filled Autzen Stadium without joyous shouts as they ran a drill that pitted the scout team offense against the scout team defense. To score a point, the defense had to prevent the offense from gaining four yards, or the offense would score a point.
Best of seven downs won the contest, and that “team” avoided conditioning drills.
The defense won the first three downs, and the defensive starters let the offense know it, chanting “de-fense, de-fense.” But the offense stormed back, winning the next two, and now the offensive starters started their own “o-ffense, o-ffense” cheer. The defense came up with a huge stop, and the defensive starters rushed the field as the offense trudged toward the goal line for running drills.
“We made the offense run, but we didn’t have to, which was good for me,” linebacker Kevin Mitchell said with a grin.
Quarterback Jason Fife said that drill epitomized the Ducks’ attitudes this week.
“I’m glad coach did that,” Fife said. “A lot of times we forget why we play this game. Of course you want to win, but above all we want to compete and we want to have fun.”

No comment
For such a bitter rivalry, the players of the Oregon and Washington teams have been keeping relatively mum this week. Both coaches are attempting to avoid the controversial comments that came out last week before the Oregon-Washington State and Oregon State-Washington games last week.
The Washington squads won their respective contests, and both said that their opponents’ trash talking helped with motivation.
“That definitely got us hyped,” Washington defensive back Nate Robinson told The Seattle Times about comments by an Oregon State player that the Beavers were going to push the Huskies “deeper into the mud.”
“I’m still wiping the mud from my face,” Washington receiver Reggie Williams told the Times.
In eastern Washington, the Cougars were ticked off by comments that may or may not have been made by Duck running back Onterrio Smith.
“Onterrio put a bull’s-eye on himself,” Washington State running back Jermaine Green told the Times. “He was talking a lot of talk to our defense, and it motivated our team to beat Oregon.”
But Smith may not have even said anything disparaging about the Cougs. Free safety Keith Lewis, on the other hand, definitely did. In an interview with Seattle sports radio, Lewis said the Ducks had “played against better” quarterbacks than Jason Gesser, and that the Ducks “look at Washington State’s field as ours.”

The cast cast
It’s that time of the season, where injuries start to take a toll on the players that head out on the field every Saturday.
Aaron Gipson was wandering the sidelines of Tuesday’s practice in a boot on his left foot, Smith and Lewis were in street clothes and linebacker Garret Graham also wasn’t practicing.
While all those players, other than Gipson, are listed as probable for this weekend’s contest against Washington, the Ducks are definitely dinged.