About Me:
Nooch is a lifelong sports fan who believes that Indianapolis ended up with a slightly better QB than San Diego in the 1998 NFL Draft, the Golden State Warriors may not make the NBA playoffs again in his lifetime (how was I supposed to know that Chris Mul
About Me:
Nooch is a lifelong sports fan who believes that Indianapolis ended up with a slightly better QB than San Diego in the 1998 NFL Draft, the Golden State Warriors may not make the NBA playoffs again in his lifetime (how was I supposed to know that Chris Mul
About Me:
Nooch is a lifelong sports fan who believes that Indianapolis ended up with a slightly better QB than San Diego in the 1998 NFL Draft, the Golden State Warriors may not make the NBA playoffs again in his lifetime (how was I supposed to know that Chris Mul
Wednesday, October 24, 2007, 04:08 PM EST
[General]
The World Series spotlight is not selective. It doesn't really care who it shines on, and any player who takes the field during World Series play has a chance to step into the glare.
A timely hit from a relative unknown can create instant celebrity and forge a legacy where none had existed just seconds before. A superstar simply acting the part can solidify his iconic status in the game. Conversely, a single misstep at the wrong time can plunge an otherwise credible career into infamy.
Although it is baseball's biggest stage, consider the World Series something akin to a wheel of fortune. Good and bad, famous and obscure, it can make heroes and goats in the blink of eye with a sometimes unnerving sense of randomness. Though, that dizzying game of chance is simply a condition of baseball itself. The World Series is just a finely condensed version of that - with millions of fans with relentless memories taking note of every moment of it.
And those memories linger.
Whether it is Carlton Fisk frantically waving his extra-inning homer fair or Bob Gibson practically charging at Detroit hitters with his follow-through on the way to a Series-record 17 strikeouts, those moments resonate in the public consciousness. While Fisk and Gibson were great players having great moments that were amplified by the October spotlight, other more ordinary players have felt that very amplifying effect, all the same.
Brooklyn Dodger OF Al Gionfriddo's MLB career was stunningly bereft of achievement, except one. In the final game of his otherwise unremarkable career, he made the catch of his life. In Game 6 of the 1947 World Series between Brooklyn and the Yankees, Giofriddo make a spectacular lunging grab in the left field corner to rob Joe DiMaggio of a homer and preserved the Dodgers' 8-6 victory.
In 1969, Al Weis hit .215 with 2 home runs for the New York Mets. However, in the Mets' miraculous run to a World Series title, it was the uber-light hitting Weis who helped to cement New York's Series-clinching win in Game 5 with a stunning 7th inning homer. For the Series, the otherwise invisible utility infielder hit .455.
So, even the most unlikely can have that one extraordinary moment in the sun.
However, the memories of Bill Buckner and Mookie Wilson's uneven grounder also occupy the same space. A moment of error can lead to years of torment. Mitch Williams, Fred Snodgrass, and Lonnie Smith certainly knew the feeling.
Williams watched Joe Carter dance around the bases after hitting a Series-ending homer off of him in 1993, Snodgrass dropped a fly ball in the 10th inning that cost the New York Giants the 1912 Series, and Smith's baserunning gaffe in Game 7 of the 1991 World Series prolonged a scoreless tie that ultimately ended in an Atlanta loss.
The agony of defeat, indeed.
So, as images of Bill Mazeroski stunning the Yankees in 1960, Roberto Clemente's relentless fury in 1971, and Willie Mays pulling off the greatest optical illusion in baseball history in 1954 undoubtedly dance across the television screen in leading up to tonight's opening salvo of the 2007 World Series, there will be heroes and goats sitting in both dugouts.
The wheel of fortune that is the World Series just hasn't passed out those assignments, yet.
It looks like Jonathan Stewart was up to the challenge, after all.
In the wake of a season-ending injury to his teammate and fellow star RB, Jeremiah Johnson, in Oregon's lopsided win over Washington State last week, there was some question as to whether or not, Stewart, the Ducks' supremely gifted junior RB would be able to shoulder the load of Oregon's rushing attack without the help of Johnson. Consider that question answered - to the tune of 251 yards.
In Oregon's 55-34 win against Washington on Saturday, Stewart set career-highs for carries (32) and yards (251) and found the end zone twice in helping the Ducks improve to 6-1 on the season. Perhaps, playing the Huskies provided extra motivation for Oregon's superstar RB, because they always seem to get Stewart's best efforts. In 2006, Stewart, from nearby Lacey, WA, had one of his biggest games of the year against his hometown team, running for 159 yards and 2 TD's. A year later, he improved that by almost 100 yards. And the locals had to be impressed. Not only did Stewart obliterate his previous career-high for rushing yards (168), he nearly doubled the number of carries he'd been averaging coming into the game (16.5). It was a big effort on a day that his team needed that from him.
And Stewart wasn't alone. Oregon's rushing attack was simply unstoppable. With Stewart leading the way, the Ducks rolled up a school-record 465 yards on the ground and left little doubt that whoever was carrying the ball for Oregon was likely to move it forward in sizeable chunks. Johnson's replacement, sophomore Andre Crenshaw, spelled Stewart and also set career-highs in carries and yards, picking up 113 yards on 15 carries and two scores.
QB Dennis Dixon joined the party as well. While Oregon's senior QB is enjoying a stellar season so far in 2007, his rushing totals had been fairly stagnant the past three games. Although he'd scored a rushing TD in each of those games, he had done so while gaining a modest 48 yards on 24 carries. The danger he had flashed as a runner in the first two games of the year, a remarkable 141-yard effort in the season opener against Houston and a 76-yard day against Michigan in Ann Arbor, had seemingly disappeared in recent weeks. That danger returned against the Huskies as Dixon added 99 yards and a TD of his own to Oregon's gaudy rushing totals. And that TD, his 7th of the season, kept his impressive string of scoring exactly one TD in each of the Ducks' seven games this year alive.
Credit for Oregon's devastating day running the football in Seattle should also include the team's veteran offensive line. Senior tackles Geoff Schwartz and Fenuki Tupou, senior guard Josh Tschirgi, junior guard Mark Lewis, and junior center Max Unger have been doing this all year long. Whether pass protecting for Dixon (and yielding less than two sacks a game) or creating space for Stewart and company to do their thing (at a 295-yard per game clip, 3rd best in the nation), the guys in the offensive trenches for the Ducks are an elite group.
And Oregon needed their running game to come up big as the team's already depleted receiving corps thinned out even more before game time. Sophomore WR Derrick Jones was suspended indefinitely for a violation of team rules. While specifics of that violation were not disclosed, an indefinite suspension implies something serious. And with Cameron Colvin and Brian Paysinger out for the year with injuries, Jones' suspension reduced the team's depth at WR considerably.
However, the Ducks' overwhelming success on the ground allowed Dixon a chance to keep the Huskies off-balance with the pass, and he was able to spread the ball around to the few available receivers in uniform. Jaison Williams, Garren Strong, and freshman Aaron Pflugrad all had five catches apiece for between 50 and 60 total receiving yards each, and Strong caught Dixon's only TD pass of the game, a 2-yard score for the game's first points. In all, Dixon completed 19 of 30 passes for 196 yards and one TD with one interception (a desperation toss-up on the final play of the first half).
Truly, the only sour notes on a day filled with upbeat ones were played by the Oregon defense.
On a day full of big plays, the Ducks' secondary was burned for four long TD passes. Washington QB Jake Locker, a redshirt freshman who seems to have the trappings of a star in the making, was spectacular against Oregon. Although he completed just 12 of 31 passes, four of those completions were daggers. One, a stunning 83-yard score to Anthony Russo, kept the Ducks from blowing the game open in the 1st quarter. Two others, a pair of TD passes in the third quarter (43 yards to Louis Rankin and 38 yards to Marcel Reese), tied the game at 31. Locker, who finished the game with 257 yards passing and 4 TD's, also ran for 78 yards and seemed to single-handedly keep the Huskies in the game until 24 fourth quarter points by the Ducks finally put things out of reach. However, Locker's effort led to 421 yards in total offense and 34 points for the Huskies, and, for three quarters, matched Oregon's high-octane offense score-for-score.
Defensively, the Ducks couldn't have looked more different than they did a week earlier in manhandling Washington State, 53-7. In that game, DE Nick Reed dominated play, recording 3.5 sacks and five tackles for loss. Against the Huskies, Reed was essentially shut-out, limited to only 3 assists. And the rest of the defense seemed to follow suit. They simply could not keep Washington off the scoreboard. With USC and Arizona State looming for the Ducks, their inconsistent defense had better find their footing - and fast.
Fortunately, the Oregon offense ultimately settled things in Seattle - 661 yards in total offense and 55 points were just too much for the Huskies to match. And visions of Oregon running backs burning up and down the field must have stayed with the Washington defense long after the game ended. After all, on a day when one of Seattle's own made a triumphant return home, his team's historic day at Husky Stadium had to leave some sort of lasting impression.
However, for just a moment, Cal QB Kevin Riley must have seen himself running through that sliver of daylight for a game-winning TD, bringing a thrilling last-second victory and, more importantly, the nation's top ranking to his team. With a treasure like that waiting just 12 yards away, it's pretty easy to see how a redshirt freshman making his first collegiate start might have forgotten exactly how much time was left on the clock (0:14), how few timeouts (none) his team had to stop it, and that a chip-shot field goal would have given the Bears a shot at overtime.
So, last Saturday in a big conference home game against Oregon State, Riley ran toward that opening and the promise of making history in front of 70,000 roaring fans when OSU LB Joey LaRocque promptly slammed the door shut at the 9-yard line, bringing Riley and Cal's tantalizingly close #1 ranking crashing down to the turf. With no timeouts left, the Bears' chances for a game-tying field goal attempt methodically withered away. It was like trying to grab sand flowing through an hour glass - it simply went through their fingers on the way to 0:00.
And no one in the suddenly silent stadium felt worse about it than Kevin Riley. While Oregon State players and coaches celebrated their stunning 31-28 win, there seemed a sense of disbelief on the Cal sideline. It was as if the #2-ranked Bears weren't quite convinced that time had actually run out and that the game had really ended in the way that it had.
If it were at all possible to turn back the game clock, Riley would have been the first one to do so. However, one would only have to trace the clock back a little over two minutes to see that the Bears wouldn't have been in a position to win the game without the gutsy play of their freshman QB in the first place. In the final two minutes of the game, save that final ill-fated play, Riley was downright heroic.
Down 31-21, Cal needed a quick score to give themselves any sort of chance at a comeback, and the Oregon State defense knew that. They also knew that their pass rush was dangerous and that inexperienced QB's tend to wilt under pressure. So, with everyone in the stadium expecting a pass, Cal's young QB calmly stepped up in the pocket and made the throw of his life. It was a perfect strike to WR Lavelle Hawkins deep down the sideline. Hawkins caught the pass in stride and blazed into the end zone.
With Cal desperate for a score, Riley had delivered it to them, a 64-yard bolt that closed the gap to three, 31-28. And Riley and the rest of his teammates knew precisely what was at stake. Earlier in the day, top-ranked LSU had been beaten by Kentucky and had dropped from the ranks of the undefeated. Now, Cal, with its 5-0 record and #2 ranking, was the next in line to take its place atop all of college football. The school hadn't had that kind of penthouse view in over 50 years. And now it was just over two minutes and four points away.
A failed on-side kick required a defensive stop, and the price for that stop was over a minute of time drained off the clock and the team's remaining time outs.
So, after an OSU punt pinned the Bears back at their own 6, Cal had a sizeable distance to go to try to get within field goal range and 1:31 in which to do it. Riley, who had thrown all of three passes all season long before he got the call for the start, had gotten into a rhythm. After a shaky first half, he had settled in and found a favorite target. While the Oregon State defense had taken away Cal's all-everything WR DeSean Jackson, they couldn't similarly account for Lavelle Hawkins. Hawkins, who would finish the game with 9 catches for an eye-popping 192 yards and two scores, quickly became the guy Riley looked to first to make a play.
All the while, Cal's regular starting QB, Nate Longshore, had to watch helplessly from the sideline. His injured ankle was barking loudly enough that the game-time decision about his status ultimately went thumbs-down. And few things are more frustrating to an athlete than not being able to help his team when the chips are down. Longshore, who had been having a terrific season before the injury (64% completion rate, 1,137 passing yards, 7 TD's with only 2 interceptions), could only watch as his team started one of the biggest drives in school history.
On the very first play of the drive, Riley dropped back into his own end zone, and an OSU defender broke free on the pass rush and steamed towards the pocket. A safety would have ended the game, and, for a moment, it looked like a sure thing. Somehow, Riley was able to absorb the hit and broke free. Though his subsequent pass went incomplete, he'd given Cal another chance. On the next play, Riley hit Hawkins for 18 yards and moved the team out of the shadow of its own end zone.
Two incompletions and a sack later, the Bears were in a dire 4th-and-17 - the game, their shot at a #1 ranking, their very season on line. Again, the freshman QB and his favorite WR made a play. Riley hit Hawkins short of the first down marker, but Hawkins turned upfield quickly and made a brilliant move to angle past the mark. The play went for 19 yards, a fresh set of downs, and untold momentum.
Everything seemed to be happening at double-speed now. The crowd noise was deafening, players were dashing on and off the field, and the clock kept flashing down. How it was that a woefully inexperienced QB wasn't completely overwhelmed by the blur that the game had become might have been the most remarkable thing to happen on a day full of remarkable things.
Whatever it was that kept the ice water pumping through Kevin Riley's veins seemed to allow him to keep making plays. And one of the biggest was a beautifully thrown 37-yard pass to WR Robert Jordan to the OSU 27. The Bears were solidly in field goal range now, but still had enough time (0:25) to think about not just tying the game but actually pulling off a last-second win. The offense was red-hot now, and the greenhorn QB was transforming into a confident hero right before everyone's eyes.
A 15-yard pass interference penalty on OSU put the ball that much closer to the doorstep. Take at least one more shot at the win? Just try to stop it.
The crowd believed, Cal's sideline believed, the 11 guys in blue-and-yellow on the field believed, and the confidence swirling around the stadium almost seemed palpable.
And then it happened. If it is at all possible to stop the momentum of 70,011 people moving in full force in one direction, Joey LaRocque did that when he brought Riley down on that ill-fated scramble. Fever pitch to pitch black with a single thud on the turf.
Now, there are those who would blast Riley for making a crucial mistake. And there's some validity in that. He did the one thing that he absolutely couldn't do - get tackled in bounds short of the end zone or a first down.
However, he also gave Cal so much more than anyone really had a right to expect from such an inexperienced player. He made throws that no one, the opposing defense included, thought he could make. He took in the frenetic energy of the crowd without fear. And he played with as much heart as anyone could have ever hoped for.
With Nate Longshore still questionable for Cal's game against UCLA tomorrow, Riley stands some chance of making his second collegiate start. And that wouldn't be a bad thing for the Bears. After all, for 59:46 of one of the biggest games in school history, he'd played a nearly perfect game, bringing his team right to the doorstep of college football's most pretigious doorway.
If only that door had stayed open just a moment or two longer.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007, 03:52 PM EST
[General]
Last year at about this time, the college football world got swept up in what was quickly turning into one of the more remarkable stories of recent vintage. The Rutgers Scarlet Knights, long the doormat of not just the Big East conference but of all college football, were on the rise. In fact, in order to fully appreciate the depth of futility of the Rutgers football program, all you needed to know was that the school had gone to exactly two bowl games in its 136-year football history.
However, Greg Schiano's team was having a remarkable season in 2006. Led by a tireless, hard-nosed senior (fullback Brian Leonard), a brilliant sophomore (RB Ray Rice), and a relentless stalwart on the defensive line (DT Eric Foster), Rutgers had reeled off nine wins in a row and sparked debate about the viability of extending a legitimate opportunity to play for the National Championship to the one-time laughingstock from Central Jersey. They were everyone's Cinderella team and garnered a fair amount of national support, mostly driven by their underdog appeal.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the BCS Title Game ball, midnight rang in Cincinnati. A stunning 30-11 drubbing by the 6-5 Bearcats ended the Scarlet Knights' title hopes and turned their otherwise regal carriage of a season into a flattened pumpkin on the turf of Nippert Stadium.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
In 2007, the bloom appears to be off the Rutgers football rose. While the Scarlet Knights are still a talented and successful team, a pair of early-season losses have dropped last year's media darlings out of the national rankings. The shoe, or in this case, the glass slipper, is on someone else's foot this season.
That foot, it turns out, belongs to another previously unheralded Big East team, the University of South Florida Bulls. Unlike Rutgers, which had had over a century of gridiron misery before capturing lightning in a bottle, USF has little football history at all. The South Florida football program has only been in existence since 1997 and, of that time, has only been a Div-1A school for the last seven seasons. So, the real surprise of their ascent in 2007 has less to do with a futile legacy and more to do with the school's lack of any kind of legacy. New kids are simply not supposed to be this good this soon.
That said, the 2007 Bulls have more in common with the 2006 Scarlet Knights than not. If you recall, Rutgers had parlayed a gutsy senior leader, a sophomore phenom, and a dominant defensive lineman into a near-dream season. South Florida is doing the same with an eerily similar ledger.
Gutsy senior leader. Check.
USF linebacker Ben Moffit doesn't understand what it means to quit. You simply work until cannot anymore. As proof of that, he spends his off-seasons felling trees. That's right. Paul Bunyan is alive and well. And he plays middle linebacker for the South Florida Bulls. On a football field, that means four quarters on overdrive - 60 minutes of keeping your foot on the gas. It also means film study and gym work all day long to prepare to play one of the most demanding positions on the field and then a long drive home at night in time to tuck in your two young kids.
And he repeats the home portion of that cycle because he knows what it's like when your father isn't around to do that. Moffit's birth father left his family when he was just months old.
He repeats the football part of that cycle, because he knows that his teammates count on him to make plays - like the one he made in USF's signature win against West Virginia earlier this season. In the first quarter against the then fifth-ranked Mountaineers, Moffit picked off a pass and returned it 26 yards for the game's first score. Although the Bulls had beaten West Virginia a year before, Moffit's stunning TD seemed to give his teammates the momentum they needed for an encore. He also had a second interception in the game, a fourth quarter pick that sealed the win, 21-13. So, when the Bulls are staring at one of the big trees in college football that needs to be brought down, they have a guy who knows just how it is done.
Sophomore phenom. Check.
It's probably safe to say that the South Florida offense depends heavily on QB Matt Grothe to make things happen. In 2006, Grothe, as a freshman, threw for over 2,000 yards and 12 TD's. He was also the team's leading rusher, scampering for 509 yards and a team-high 7 scores. This year, the addition of highly-touted RB Mike Ford was supposed to take some of the heat off of USF's star QB. However, it is Grothe again who leads the Bulls in rushing with 346 yards.
And the second-year QB's style of play can probably best be described as chaotic. Whether scrambling wildly for jagged gains or firing the ball downfield with equal parts hope and arrogance, Grothe always sees possibility and never pitfall. Fittingly, one of Grothe's football idols growing up was one of the biggest gunslingers of them all, Brett Favre. And while Favre is headed for Canton and Grothe is still taking mid-terms, it's not difficult to see a little of Favre's bravado in the young QB's game.
Perhaps, that kind of swagger is required to lead a team that has no reference point for its current altitude and no way of knowing what is required to stay in that rarified air. If so, Grothe seems to have that swagger, and it's probably a good thing because a certain degree of fearlessness will be required for how much further the team has to go in the pitch dark.
Dominant defensive lineman. Check.
George Selvie had originally wanted to protect college QB's rather than smashing them into the turf. However, USF Coach Jim Leavitt has to be pleased with the way things turned out. Although he'd been recruited as an offensive lineman, at 230 pounds, Selvie looked more like a center in the low post than a snapper on the football field. So, his transition to defensive end seemed to suit his frame much better. How much better likely surprised even Selvie and Leavitt.
Opponents have found that Selvie simply cannot be blocked. In six games this season, he already has 11.5 sacks and 22 tackles for loss. And the scariest part may be that, as a sophomore, Selvie is only going to get better. As for any possibility of a let-up, it's not likely. His father was a 20-year Navy veteran, and it's easy to see a similar sense of dedication and discipline in his son.
So, when USF takes on Rutgers this Thursday with their perfect season on the line, they might well take a moment to look at the team on the other sideline, because they'll see a team that was in the very same position just a year ago and had their dream season turn to dust. For Rutgers, it's a chance to take away what was taken from them in 2006. They're two teams with similar ingredient lists but are on opposite sides of wild expectation and jaded disappointment, separated almost precisely by a calendar year.
And you better believe that the step-teams from the SEC, Pac-10, and Big-12 will have one eye on the clock and one eye on the game in Piscataway tomorrow night hoping that royal carriage turns into a pumpkin when the clock strikes midnight on this year's version of Cinderella.
However, the team with Paul Bunyan at linebacker, a gunslinger for a QB, and an unstoppable force flying off the defensive edge might have a thing or two to say about what happens to their ride.
So much for a letdown by the University of Oregon's football team.
After a gut-wrenching loss to Cal that ended when a potential game-tying touchdown was fumbled out of the end zone in the closing seconds, the Oregon Ducks probably had to at least consider the possibility that losing such a close game with so much on the line might have some carryover. Just to emphasize the point, a bye week brought them seven more days to ponder the situation.
As it turned out, the extra time likely did little more than get them good and angry for the next team that happened to get in the way. Enter the struggling Washington State Cougars. Bill Doba's team was winless in conference play (0-3) with a defense that was reeling, especially on the road. In the Cougars' previous three road games, they had given up at least 40 points in each. Add to that the fact that Oregon's Autzen Stadium is one of the tougher venues in the conference in which to play, and the formula for the game seemed set.
So, what happens when an angry offensive juggernaut takes on a flailing defense?
As befitting a team from Oregon, the Ducks made it rain. There were points and touchdown passes and fast players in yellow and green uniforms covering the field all afternoon long. In football terms, Oregon made the sky open up and the resulting thunder and lightning was impressive to watch.
Oregon QB Dennis Dixon rebounded nicely from a disappointing two-interception performance against Cal, completing 21 of his 28 passes against the Cougars for 287 yards and 3 TD's. More importantly, he avoided throwing any picks, the fifth time he's done so in six games this year. For the season, Dixon's numbers look even more gaudy - 1,525 passing yards, a 70.2% completion rate, 15 TD's, and only 2 interceptions.
As if to punctuate his danger on a football field, Dixon also ran in for a score, his team-leading sixth rushing TD this season.
With Dixon doing most of the work offensively, star RB Jonathan Stewart put in a workmanlike day at the office, 66 yards on 13 carries (a 5.1 per carry average) and spent most of the day watching his teammates deliver the beating.
One of those teammates was Stewart's understudy at RB, Jeremiah Johnson. Johnson bolted to two 1st quarter scores, including a 42-yard TD run that opened the scoring. However, if anything could put a damper on what would eventually wind up a ringing 53-7 conference win, it was the sight of Oregon's talented backup RB being carted off the field with a knee injury. Johnson, who had gained 63 yards on just 4 carries up to that point, wrenched his knee in the second quarter and could miss the rest of the season.
And it is a big loss. Johnson's numbers for the year - 344 rushing yards (at 6.4 yards per carry) and 5 TD's - will be very difficult to replace. More than that, it was Johnson's quickness and elusiveness that provided such an effective contrast in running styles to the power and straight-ahead speed of Stewart. The burden of replacing Johnson now falls to a pair of sophomores, Andre Crenshaw and Remene Alston. Crenshaw, in particular, has looked good at times this year, gaining 156 yards in limited duty. However, neither he nor Alston ran particularly well against Washington State. Alston was held to 26 yards on 13 carries, and Crenshaw gained just 24 on nine carries.
With the shadow of Johnson's injury hanging over the team, they will also have to deal with WR Cameron Colvin being lost for the year with a broken ankle. Colvin, who made the ill-fated fumble against Cal, has had a star-crossed career at Oregon. Though the potential for stardom was always there, the talented senior WR never seemed to be able to reach that level. Sadly, Colvin was making a final push to get there this year, having a pair of his best games for the Ducks before he got hurt.
In Colvin's absence, big Jaison Williams made one of his sporadic appearances in the spotlight. Ever the game-breaking threat, Williams has spent most of his career at Oregon as more abstract promise than actual dagger. However, as he has been known to do, Williams again flashed a glimpse of his remarkable ability, hauling in four passes for 108 yards and a score, a 52-yard home run in the second quarter that pushed the score to 33-0.
However, with Colvin now out and Brian Paysinger also out from earlier in the year, it is imperative for Williams to be a consistent threat. His history of sporadic play and dropped passes suggests such a leap to consistent stardom may not be in the cards, but if he can get there, he'll be able to mitigate the losses of Colvin and Paysinger a great deal.
Sophomore WR Derrick Jones, an emerging star, and TE Ed Dickson will also be around to help. In recent weeks, Dickson has become a legitimate downfield threat. Against Washington State, he caught three passes for 70 yards.
In all, Oregon's offense roared to 551 yards in total offense and 53 points. However, it might have been the defense that actually stole the show.
Though opportunistic (15 turnovers in 6 games), the Ducks defense has been largely inconsistent. And one of the biggest trouble spots has been the defensive line. Elite running backs have had triple-digit success against them, and opposing QB's have had ample time to throw in light of a spotty pass rush.
Against Washington State, neither was the case. Talented Cougar QB Alex Brink came into the game with 17 TD's and only 5 interceptions, completing better than 64% of his pass attempts. Although Washington State's running game lacked the venom of an elite back, the team's leading rusher, Dwight Tardy, entered the game with over 400 yards on the ground and 4 TD's, not lethal numbers but not helpless ones, either.
So, when Oregon's defense stuffed the Cougar offense to the tune of 314 yards of total offense and seven points, the most surprising thing might have been which part of the defense led the charge. Recording a season-high six sacks, Oregon's defensive line simply manhandled their opposite numbers on the Washington State line. Junior DE Nick Reed was particularly dangerous, recording 3.5 of those sacks and an impressive five tackles for loss.
In fact, Reed is playing terrific football of late and may be the one who can lift the beleaguered D-line from their doldrums. For the year, the Ducks' fiery edge rusher has a team-high 7.5 sacks and 13 tackles for loss, leading both categories by more than twice the respective totals of his closest teammate.
With Reed leading the way against Washington State, Oregon held the Cougars to 63 yards rushing on 30 attempts (a 2.1 average) and forced Brink into a pair of interceptions. On the day, WSU's star QB completed less than half of his pass attempts and was under constant pressure.
And so it went for the Ducks. They received explosive, blinding lightning from the offense, and ear-splitting, violent thunder from the defense. And on a day that had started with questions about letdowns and included devastating injuries to key players, it was probably appropriate for the team from one of the rainiest states in the country to respond as they did - with a downpour of points and overall football fury. Just enough, in fact, to let the rest of college football know that when you come to Eugene you might well expect to find a fair amount of thunder and lightning in the Oregon sky.
Send Message
Add Friend
Block User
Invite to Group
Report User 
