Five straight 100-yard games.
Six hundred twelve total yards. Nine touchdowns.
Yawn.
You’re not satisfied. You want more. You want 285 yards every game. You want 80-yard touchdown runs. You want defenders’ knees to break. You want a 60-minute highlight reel from Onterrio Smith every Saturday.
And so does he.
Battling nagging injuries throughout the preseason, the junior tailback is getting healthy at the right time for the Ducks.
“My body feels real strong,” the 5-foot-10, 204-pound Sacramento native said Monday. “I am 100 percent healthy.”
Finally, you say.
For a guy who openly, if not matter-of-factly, stated in August that he wanted to rush for 2,000 yards this season, you would think he would have put up jaw-dropping numbers against the likes of Idaho and Portland State. But during Oregon’s four-game non-conference swing, Onterrio averaged only 117 yards per game.
More, more, more, you cry.
After a week of rest, the Sacramento native bolted back to Superman status with his 145-yard, two-touchdown performance in the Pacific-10 Conference opener in Arizona. And, like a true superstar, he’s saving his best for the best.
“I’m hungry for more,” he said Monday. “Not being healthy those first four games, and having the chance in the Arizona game to prove that I was healthy was a big step for me.
“I feel like I’m back on track now and I can start putting up the numbers that I want to put up and everybody else wants me to put up.”
Three hundred yards, five touchdowns, you demand.
As unrealistic as your demands may be, Onterrio is trying to live up to them.
Still, you unenthusiastically slumped on your couch last Saturday as Onterrio put up his fifth-straight 100-yard game. Your eyes got heavy at the sight of another broken tackle.
Nice run, you thought. But not enough to get you excited. Nothing that could shake you out of your seat, like Onterrio often does to defenders.
Onterrio brings your discontent upon himself. After two years of playing in the Autzen Stadium shadows — his first on the scout team and last year as a backup to Maurice Morris — he wants to carry this team to national glory.
Woohoo.
He created your expectations when he called out Barry Sanders’ NCAA single-season record of 2,628 yards. To even get to 2,000 yards by the end of the regular season, he’d have to average 198 yards for each of the next seven Saturdays. Even for one of the best ball-carriers in school history, that’s unheard of, if not downright absurd.
Then again, if anyone can do it, it’s Onterrio.
That’s what I like to hear. Run, Onterrio, run.
Because he’s stayed out of the trouble that got him booted from Tennessee, Onterrio has put himself in a record-setting position and could become Oregon’s first Heisman Trophy winner.
“I have no concerns about Onterrio,” head coach Mike Bellotti said. “I don’t feel there’s a need to oversee what he does. He’s a man and he understands what’s at stake for all of us.
“Big Brother is not watching.”
And neither, at times, are you. Onterrio’s 4.7-yard average and league-leading nine touchdowns are about as monotonous to you as another Oregon win.
You want a repeat of his record-setting performance at Washington State last season, when he racked up 285 yards and bowled over defenders like they were Cheerios.
“I’m still far away from a breakout game,” Onterrio said. “A breakout game for me is 250 and above. You know, three or four touchdowns. That’s a breakout game.
“But I’m back healthy, and my offensive line, and fullback and tight ends and receivers continue to block, and good things will come.”
They’ll come, all right. You just keep watching.
OK.