It doesn’t matter who you are or who your favorite team is. At some point, your rooting spirit will get crushed. Sure, there may well be championship glory to celebrate. However, no team wins a championship every year. Eventually, there will be a moment when hope vanishes and championship dreams turn to dust. For the second-ranked Oregon Ducks, that moment happened the instant Oregon’s all-everything QB Dennis Dixon limped off the field last night in Tucson, taking the team’s national championship hopes with him during the first quarter of Oregon’s 34-24 loss to Arizona.
Dixon, the Heisman Trophy favorite and the multi-threat trigger man for Oregon’s lethal spread offense, had already stunned the Wildcats with a 39-yard TD bolt straight up the middle of the field on a 4th-and-3 to start the game. He then drove the team back into the red zone on the Ducks’ next series before a pass bouncing out of WR Derrick Jones’ hands was intercepted in the end zone. While Arizona capitalized on the mistake with a score of their own, a 34-yard TD strike from Willie Tuitama to Mike Thomas, it was what happened on Oregon’s next drive that ultimately determined the game, dashed the Ducks’ dream season, and caused yet another shake-up to the BCS picture.
Driving Oregon into the red zone yet again, Dixon ran an option play, but something went horribly wrong. His knee buckled, and he fell to the turf in a heap. Where a similar sight two weeks before against Arizona State only turned out to be a sizable scare, this time the injury was very real. And Oregon’s high-powered offense came to screeching, ear-splitting halt.
Enter backup QB Brady Leaf. Exit any and all chance for the Ducks to win the game.
Because you cannot take a Ferrari off the racetrack, replace it with a Prius, and expect to win the race. Almost as if on cue, Leaf threw a back-breaking interception on Oregon’s very next series. Arizona’s star CB Antoine Cason jumped a route on a short third-down pass and took the ball 42 yards for a TD and the first lead of the game for the Wildcats, 17-11. Momentum was in full force for Arizona, and the Ducks looked dizzy from how quickly their fortunes had spun on them.
And they simply didn’t stop spinning.
Tuitama burned the Oregon secondary again. This time, on a third-and-long, he again found Mike Thomas, who split the coverage and caught a brilliantly thrown pass from Tuitama in the seam before streaking past flailing defenders 46 yards for a score. Thomas finished the game with 6 catches for a game-high 125 yards and the two big TD’s, and he wasn’t alone in making big plays for the Wildcats.
Just 10 minutes after he stunned Oregon with an interception return for a TD, Antoine Cason stunned the Ducks a second time. He took an Oregon punt 56 yards to the house to give Arizona a commanding 31-11 lead. Just like that, the Wildcats had dropped 24 straight points on the Ducks. Knowing that Oregon was wounded and reeling without their superstar QB, Arizona had swarmed in to take advantage.
Down 20 and left with a single weapon in the backfield, star RB Jonathan Stewart, Oregon gamely attempted a second half comeback. Stewart, who finished with 131 yards on 28 carries, just kept churning upfield. However, the Arizona defense, led by senior LB Spencer Larsen, knew that, besides Stewart, Oregon’s offensive cupboard was bare. So, they turned up the heat on the Oregon star.
With Stewart reasonably contained, the Wildcats openly challenged Leaf to make plays. And he couldn’t. Where Dixon had been able to run circles around defenses to buy time or burst into the open field, the cement-footed Leaf could only try to get the ball downfield with his arm and a depleted receiving corps. Arizona’s secondary, playing with house money and a 20-point lead, refused to yield the big plays Leaf and the rest of the Ducks needed to get back into the game.
Though Oregon did close to within 31-24 late in the fourth quarter, the long, painstaking drives that were required for those closing points drained too much off the clock. Without the ability to strike quickly, as they had done for much of the season under Dixon’s scary precision, Oregon just had too little to make up too much.
As Arizona students mobbed the field and the Ducks’ BCS title dreams evaporated, there was little solace to be found in what might have been. While no team ever wants to lose, they can only hope that such losses occur with their best. The added bitterness in Oregon’s meltdown in Tucson was that their best was in street clothes for three-and-a-half quarters
However, give Arizona credit. They took down the #2-ranked team in the nation by knowing exactly where the Ducks were vulnerable and keeping their foot on the wound until Oregon simply could not get back up. That the dream season in Eugene is gone is heartbreaking, for sure. The wild ride that was Oregon’s exhilarating dash to the cusp of college football’s apex still had its moments, and there is gratitude in that. It’s just a shame that the one moment still fresh in everyone’s mind is the sight of the team’s best player not being able to finish what he had worked so tirelessly to help create.
The University of Arizona's motto is "Bear Down", as well as the name of the school's fight song. It is a mantra that Oregon's football team might do well to consider themselves, because focus and commitment seem to be scarce commodities on the Oregon sidelines these days.
Less than a month ago, Arizona Head Coach Mike Stoops was steering a team with a 3-5 record and road games at Pullman and Eugene and a home game against BCS contender Cal threatening to destroy the Wildcats' season. After a surprise win against Washington State and a shocking upset of Cal, Arizona showed heart, a surprising amount of heart.
On the other hand, Oregon was busy suffering a string of embarrassing road losses while demonstrating a disappointing lack of heart. And when an overachieving team with desire and momentum runs into an underachieving one without that same fire, the underachievers are in trouble.
And so it was this weekend in Eugene.
Opponent: Arizona
Result: Loss, 37-10
Location: (H) - Autzen Stadium, Eugene, Oregon
The Good
It is a short and mostly irrelevant list.
Backup RB Jeremiah Johnson was the lone standout for Oregon on either side of the ball. He ran for 103 yards on 10 carries (a 10.3 per carry average) and Oregon's only TD of the game.
The pass rush was also surprisingly effective. Oregon sacked Arizona OB's three times on only 17 pass plays. Unfortunately, when those same QB's were allowed to get a pass away, they completed 64% of them, and each completion went for an average of 14.8 yards.
Also, it was a minor thing under the circumstances, but Oregon's season-long trouble with penalties wasn't a problem. The Ducks were only called for a pair of infractions for 20 yards.
The Bad
The formula for ugly losses this season has remained the same: QB Dennis Dixon throwing a bunch of passes to the guys wearing different jerseys, and RB Jonathan Stewart doing an invisible man impersonation that would make Claude Rains proud.
Against Arizona, both players contributed mightily to that formula. Dixon had his worst game of the season, throwing for only 88 yards and three picks, and Stewart was stuffed for only 26 yards on 11 carries (a 2.4 per carry average). Without their star players acting the part, the offense was doomed.
By the time Dixon's backup, Brady Leaf, threw another interception and the Ducks lost a pair of fumbles, Oregon was looking at a minus-6 on the turnover ledger and the inevitable blow-out that they were caught in the middle of.
Unfortunately, the defense didn't play much better. It didn't seem to matter what Arizona's offense ran, because it all worked. Of the Wildcats' four TD's, all were from at least 15 yards, with two being big play back breakers of at least 35 yards.
On the ground, Arizona's big Chris Henry almost single-handedly ruined Oregon's defense. Even though Henry entered the game averaging only 2.9 yards per carry for the season, he was unstoppable against the Ducks, rumbling for 191 yards on 29 carries (a 6.6 per carry average) and two scores. So, it was fitting that he delivered the dagger in the game, a devastating 61-yard TD as time was running out in the 3rd quarter. The 6'0", 233-pound senior RB also snagged a 21-yard TD pass from erratic but talented Arizona QB Willie Tuitama.
Through the air, Arizona only threw a handful of passes but seemed to make each count while the game was still in doubt. Tuitama only attempted nine passes, completing eight (an 89% completion rate) for 120 yards and two scores.
Once again the coaching staff didn't make any effective adjustments in the second half. Not only was Oregon shut out on the second half, they couldn't slow down a running game that was averaging less than three yards per carry coming into the game and knowing that that was pretty much all the Arizona offense planned to do after halftime.
Top Duck
Johnson. With Jonathan Stewart a non-factor in the game, Johnson provided the lone offensive spark for the Ducks. His 8-yard TD run in the second quarter closed the score to 14-10 and marked the last time Oregon was even remotely in the game.
Injuries
Major - The following players are out for the season: CB Jackie Bates (broken bone in leg), LB Brent Haberly (broken arm), DL Cole Linehan (foot surgery), RB Chris Vincent (knee), and DL Micah Howeth (academically ineligible).
However, Haberly has been talking about defying the original prognosis and returning before the season is over.
Serious – TE Dan Kause (ankle) has been out since the USC game and is listed as questionable for the Oregon State game.
Minor – RB Andiel Brown, who had been out since the Washington game, returned to play against Arizona. Likewise, WR James Finley appears to be recovered from a knee injury that kept him out of the USC game.
Summary
After the 35-10 embarrassment against USC, Oregon was returning to the one place they had been able to redeem themselves this season after difficult road losses, Autzen Stadium. With an unranked team walking directly into the fire of one of the most intimidating football environments in the conference, Oregon had a chance to get some self-respect back against a beatable team like Arizona. They didn't.
Worse yet, the loss to the Wildcats wasn't a coin flip. Instead, it was a solid, old-fashioned ####-kicking of the highest order in front of a stadium full of their own fans. And if that kind of humiliating defeat doesn't wake the team up in time to give a credible effort in the biggest rivalry game of the season next week, I'm not sure there is much reason for optimism looking ahead to a possible bowl game and even into next season.
The Civil War game against Oregon State is the one game each season that can define success or utter failure for an Oregon team. How much either of those results means to this year's squad will likely show itself in the type of effort given this Friday in Corvallis.
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 Mullin would make a coaching hire and a mid-season trade that would basically save the franchise?), and that Mike Ivie's pinch-hit, game winning grand slam for the Giants against the Dodgers in 1978 may have been the greatest moment in baseball history.
