Despite finishing the regular season with three straight losses, there were mostly smiles within the Oregon football program Tuesday when the Ducks learned of their invitation to play in the 15th-annual Las Vegas Bowl against No. 20 Brigham Young University on Dec. 21.
“It’s always great to play in a bowl game,” defensive coordinator Nick Aliotti said. “Some years you feel better about it. Some years you’re higher than others, but I’m not ready to stop coaching this year.”
Oregon returns to Las Vegas and Sam Boyd Stadium for the first time since 1997, when the unranked Ducks defeated No. 23 Air Force 41-13 thanks to 583 yards of total offense.
“Your program was the first Pac-10 team to ever participate in the Las Vegas Bowl and the city of Las Vegas has great memories of your team and fans from that experience,” Las Vegas Bowl Executive Director Tina Kunzer-Murphy said during the official announcement. “Congratulations to all of you. We are so excited and looking forward to you all coming to Las Vegas, getting out of the rain and snow.”
The BYU-Oregon matchup brings together the past and present for the Ducks’ Gary Crowton. The second-year offensive coordinator graduated from BYU in 1983, served as an student assistant there before taking the reigns as head coach from 2001-04 and arriving in Eugene in 2005.
He finished with a 26-23 record in his four years but earned conference coach of the year and a Mountain West Conference championship with a 12-2 record in his first season.
“I can’t speak for Gary, but I would say this (reunion) is going to be somewhat uncomfortable,” said Aliotti who has twice been in similar situations, facing Oregon when he worked at Oregon State from 1980-83 and at UCLA in 1998. “If you have strong feelings for the team you’re playing, which I assume he does for BYU, it adds some extra sentiment or some feelings for the game.”
Crowton was traveling Tuesday for recruiting purposes and could not be reached for comment.
Oregon coach Mike Bellotti said the Ducks will rely on Crowton’s intimate knowledge of BYU’s program.
“I think he recruited a great portion of them and knows them and knows both sides of ball,” said Bellotti, also on the road for recruiting. “I think that’s certainly an advantage in that regard.
“Although, in two years time, things change, players change, schemes change. … But obviously if we have a question about this player or that player or this scheme or what they’re doing, I think he would certainly be an expert.”
The Ducks have a much shorter window to prepare for the Cougars with the bowl falling on Dec. 21. Last season the Ducks didn’t play in the Holiday Bowl until Dec. 29.
“I don’t like that,” Aliotti said. “I like getting those extra practices, not necessarily for bowl preparation, but also for getting kids reps. So we won’t have that luxury this year.”
The Ducks will practice this weekend, take next week off for finals, then reconvene again for practice next weekend and a few days the following week.
The team will leave for Las Vegas on Dec. 18.
The good news, Bellotti said, is that the Ducks will be able to spend Christmas with their families.
“I think it’s really sort of the best of both worlds,” he said. “It’s a tremendous opportunity to play in a very, very great venue and bowl game against a great football team in BYU with the best record they’ve had in many years, and then also get a nice Christmas break for players and coaches alike.”
The Cougars are coming off a 10-2 campaign this season, capped by a dramatic 33-31 win against rival Utah in which quarterback John Beck scrambled to one side of the field and then to another before he tossed an 11-yard touchdown with no time left to give BYU the victory.
Beck, a 6-foot-2-inch senior, is the catalyst for a BYU offense that averages 36.7 points per game and 458.6 yards per game. Beck, who is second in the nation in passing efficiency behind only Hawaii’s Colt Brennan, has thrown for 3,510 yards and 30 touchdowns with just six interceptions. The Cougars currently rank fifth nationally in total offense, ahead of Oregon at eighth.
BYU won the Mountain West Conference and its only losses this season came by a late field goal at Arizona and in overtime at Boston College.
“I haven’t had a chance to see them very much,” Bellotti said of BYU. “But I know their quarterback is tremendously accurate, they throw the ball a ton and they can do everything they need to win because they’ve won 10 games.”
The Ducks are 3-2 all-time against the Cougars. Most recently, Oregon lost 45-41 in Provo, Utah, in 1989 when quarterback Bill Musgrave tossed a school-record 489 yards and the Ducks gained a school-record 667 yards in a losing effort. The following year Oregon held the Cougars to a school-record low -47 yards rushing and beat eventual Heisman-winning quarterback Ty Detmer and No. 4 BYU 32-16 at Autzen Stadium.
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