With 9:15 remaining in the second quarter Saturday, Oregon tailback Onterrio Smith capped an easy five-play drive with a 1-yard touchdown run, already his second score of the game.
The Ducks took a 21-0 lead over Arizona State and began to look for the cruise-control button.
Oregon appeared to be headed for its first 7-0 start in 69 years and extended its school-record winning streak to 12 games.
Then the Ducks got conservative. Or complacent. Or cocky. Or all of the above.
And then they got shocked. And humbled. And embarrassed.
The result? Oregon’s first loss in almost exactly one year, a 45-42 Sun Devil victory in front of a stunned crowd of 56,432 at Autzen Stadium.
“It leaves a very nasty taste in your mouth,” Oregon quarterback Jason Fife said after suffering his first loss as a starter. “We don’t want this taste ever again.”
By the time Fife was hit and then intercepted with 1:35 left, ASU quarterback Andrew Walter had rewritten the record books — and made the Oregon secondary look like a Pop Warner youth team.
Walter set a Pac-10 record with 536 passing yards — 350 in the second half — as he overcame two first-quarter interceptions to throw four touchdown passes.
“We were beating ourselves, they weren’t stopping us,” Walter said of ASU’s slow start. “This (win) was huge for our program. It showed a lot of character today to come back from being down 21-0 and winning.”
The comeback started with a Walter touchdown pass to Justin Taplin late in the second quarter and then an ASU field goal to cut the lead to 21-10 at halftime.
“We went to sleep a little bit and gave them some hope,” Oregon linebacker David Moretti said.
That hope quickly turned to confidence for Arizona State. After Smith scored for the third time to open the third quarter, the Devils (6-2 overall, 3-0 Pac-10) torched the Ducks (6-1, 2-1) with 25 unanswered points in the second half to take a 42-35 lead with 9:18 left in the fourth quarter.
The Ducks answered with a 12-yard touchdown pass from Fife to Samie Parker to knot the game at 42 with 6:55 left.
Arizona State, coached by former Oregon assistant Dirk Koetter, then put together an impressive 16-play drive that ate nearly five minutes off the clock. Mike Barth connected on his third field goal of the game with 2:01 remaining to put the Devils ahead by three.
After already leading the Ducks to a come-from-behind win against Fresno State, Fife said he was confident when he got the ball back with 1:57 remaining.
“The last thing I said to the offensive line was, ‘Hey guys, it’s business as usual. Let’s just go out there and do what we do,’” Fife said.
But on the second play of the drive, Fife was hit as he was throwing by ASU defensive end Terrell Suggs — the nation’s sack leader who was held without one Saturday — and the ball floated into the hands of defensive back Brett Hudson, who returned the ball to the Oregon 4-yard line.
No more comeback. No more streaks. No more national championship hopes — at least for now.
“We just could not stop them,” Oregon head coach Mike Bellotti said. “We need to look at why, and remedy those things. Obviously we have to shore up our pass defense.”
In all, Arizona State racked up 590 yards of total offense, just 31 on the ground. Meanwhile, Smith recorded his seventh-straight 100-yard effort as he posted a season-high 172 yards.
“Based on the looks I saw in the locker room, I think we’ll be OK,” Bellotti said.
Oregon dropped to No. 12 in the coaches’ poll and No. 14 in the Associated Press poll, which were released Sunday.
“We can’t win every game,” Moretti said. “We’ll find out how good of a team we are in the next five games.”
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