Ducks snatch loss from jaws of victory
By JOHN HARRIS
Of the Emerald
Someone in the press box had
the gall to say, “I told you so,”
when Brigham Young’s Doug Wil
liams bolted 1 yard for the winning
touchdown against Oregon with
3:03 left in Saturday’s game at Au
tzen Stadium.
Hell, the outcome became as
obvious as the day was sunny
midway through the third quarter
when the Ducks’ Tim Durando
fumbled at the BYU three, the
Cougars recovered and then sent
in second-string quaterback Jim
McMahon to replace starter Marc
Wilson.
For the past four weeks Oregon
has been victimized by a never
ending variety of its own mistakes
and the play of a reserve quarter
back, who comes into the game
late in the second half and leads
his team to come from behind to
win over the Ducks.
From week to week only the
names and Oregon's method of
snatching defeat from the jaws of
victory changes. The Ducks now
own a 0-6 record and have lost
their last four games by four,
three, and one points.
Luckily for Oregon, some of the
24,500 fans in Autzen soaked up
enough sunshine and bourbon
and coke to have forgotten by now
how the Ducks managed to blow a
16-3 lead. Much of the rest of the
crowd found the game outright
unbelievable.
Oregon coach Rich Brooks was
among the latter. Sitting on a
bench in the locker room following
the contest, Brooks was in such a
state of shock that he laughed
while saying, “This is the most in
credible thing I’ve ever been
around. It’s amazing. I thought
we’d get over that big hurdle, but
obviously we didn’t.”
What irked Brooks most was a
series of costly mistakes dealing
with facets of play that hitherto
had not overly concerned the
Oregon coaches.
The Ducks’ first faulty snap to
the punter of the year resulted in a
BYU touchdown on the following
play, cutting Oreagon’s lead to
16-10 with 6:21 left in the game.
On the Cougars’ next posses
sion Oregon cornerback Rick
Hudnell, whose play has been
superlative of late, was flagged for
interference in the BYU end zone,
thus setting up Williams’ winning
touchdown.
Those were by no means the
f\. . _ I_1_I. . ___
Ducks only errors. Attertresnman
tailback Dwight Robertson,
who rushed for 72 yards on five
carries, sprinted 58 yards to the
BYU 6 in the third quarter, it
looked as though Oregon might
put the game out of reach; a
touchdown would have lifted the
Ducks to a 22-3 lead. But on third
down from the three Durando was
stripped of the ball while playing
cat and mouse with a BYU line
man on an option play.
‘‘I fumbled and lost us the
game,” he said in the locker room
after the game. “There’s no ex
cuse for that. I should have tucked
the ball away.”
Durando played admirably after
after replacing Mike Kennedy,
who suffered a slight separation of
his left shoulder in the first period.
A safety when the season began,
Durando moved to quaterback
when back-up signal caller Dan
Daly quit after the Southern Cal
game. As late as last week he was
the Ducks’ third-string quarter
back. Freshman Kevin Lusk
would have replaced Kennedy
had he gone down last Saturday,
but during the week Durando
moved up a notch on the strength
of his performance in practice.
“He hasn’t practiced there
(quarterback) much, but did pretty
damn well under the circums
tances,” said John Becker,
Oregon offensive coordinator.
Durando completed nine of 16
passes for 93 yards and scored
Photo by Steve Schneider
A fumble on the BYU 3-yard-line spoiled an oth.ciwise fine perfor
mance by Oregon's second-string quarterback, Tim Durando.
J
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Oregon’s second touchdown
when he caught a 13-yard pass
from reserve defensive back Jim
Johnson, who had entered the
game as a halfback.
With Kennedy expected to be
out of action for two to four weeks,
Durando is set as the Ducks’ quar
terback, an unenviable position
considering that Oregon faces the
Washington Huskies Saturday in
Seattle.
Really, the entire Oregon squad
is in a difficult position. Four of the
remaining five games are
against winning teams, and in
juries are beginning to decimate
the Ducks already thin ranks.
Whether or not Oregon can re
bound from the ordeal of the past
four weeks remains to be seen,
but if Hudnell, a devout Christian
who read the Bible before games,
speaks for the rest of the team, the
Ducks are not ready to give up yet.
"This keeps happening over
and over and over again, and
we've just got to make it stop,” he
says. “Not a single person is giv
ing up. We all know it’s there.”
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