Football Notes
For many players on the Oregon football team, Saturday’s game at the Rose Bowl will be less about a road trip and more about a homecoming.
Five Oregon players are from Los Angeles, while 26 are from Southern California. Many of those players were passed over by UCLA in the recruiting process, but some were heavily recruited by the Bruins and simply headed north for the rain and green trees.
Either way, the Los Angeles schools always have an aura about them, and it’s an aura the Ducks would love to shatter.
“Being from southern California, everybody thinks USC and UCLA are the teams to beat every single year,” quarterback Jason Fife said. “For us Southern California boys, it’s pretty exciting to go back there and play them.”
UCLA won’t have the motivation that USC will facing the Ducks — a billboard featuring three Oregon receivers sits blocks from the Trojan campus — but the Oregon players will have the motivation — a lifetime of looking up at UCLA — for Saturday’s contest.

Cas remembered

The Oregon helmets prominently featured the word “CAS” during Saturday’s contest at Arizona. The note was a way to honor Len Casanova, the Oregon legend who died Sept. 30 at the age of 97.
The Ducks will wear the note on their helmets for the rest of the season in remembrance of Casanova.
On Monday, the Athletic Department held a service at the Casanova Center for the former Oregon coach and athletic director. Ducks head coach Mike Bellotti said many of his players were unable to attend, but also said he taped the service and hopes to show it to his team.
“Most of our players, unfortunately, did not know Cas,” Bellotti said. “Really, the past couple years, he hasn’t been around too often, while in the past he traveled a lot with the team.”

Holy Howry, Batman
It was a simple pass down the middle, through a seam on a line from Jason Fife to Keenan Howry.
But it meant that one of Oregon’s biggest weapons is fully loaded. Howry hadn’t caught a touchdown pass all season until Saturday’s 33-yard touchdown catch from Fife. The catch was Howry’s longest this season.
Howry has often been double-teamed as he came in to the 2002 campaign with high expectations. He is currently third on the team with 12 catches for 174 yards.
Even with the touchdown drought, Howry has extended his signature streak of games with at least one reception to 40 games. He needs catches against UCLA and Arizona State to tie the Pac-10 record.

And the West Coast Ducks
ABC picked up its option to televise Saturday’s Oregon-UCLA game live regionally. It will mark the third nationally-or-regionally televised game for the Ducks this season, and the first on a
non-cable channel.
Those tuning in are almost assured a close game will transpire. In the last four games between the teams, three have been decided by three points or less. Last year the game ended when the Ducks stopped the charging Bruins at midfield to end the game, while three years ago the contest ended with UCLA stopping Oregon at the 1-yard line.