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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 26, 1979)
The Trojans have the horses to repeat Rose Bowl selection Sophomore strong safety Ernie Taylor lets his mind wander from practice proceedings, per haps thinking of the generosity given the Ducks by the Pac-10 schedule maker. Oregon does Second part of a two part series. This week, the southern teams. Analysis by STEVE MYERS Of the Emerald The race is on for the Pacific-10 crown. In the past, the conference champion has usually been from sunny California and more often than not the team has been the University of Southern California. Early season polls (UPI and AP) indicate that sports writers and coaches around the country have picked USC to win the imaginary national crown for the second year in a row. There isn’t much reason to doubt these football minds, but who would have thought that the University of Washington would sneak past the mighty Trojans and into the 1977 Rose Bowl, much less beat the powerful Michigan Wolverines. In order for a team to win a Pac-10 football crown twice in a row, it usually needs to go through the conference season undefeated. In the Pac-10 that is not an easy feat to accomplish. Especially with the quality teams produced by the Califor nia and Arizona schools. Here is a summary of what to expect from Pac-10 teams south of the Oregon border: UCLA — Probably the big gest difference from last year's Bruin squad will be the lack of power running back Theotis “Big Foot” Brown, Olympic hurdler James Owens at half back, three-time consensus All American (first time in the U S. in 29 years) Jerry Robinson at inside linebacker and second team All-American Manu Tuia sosopo at nose guard. All told, fourth-year coach Terry Donahue has lost 23 let termen, including seven offen sive starters and eight defensive starters from the 1978 team that had a season record of 8-3-1, finished 12th on the UPI poll (coaches selections) and 14th on the AP poll (sports writers selections). According to Donahue the 1979 Bruin team will be “an extremely inexperienced foot ball team with a total of only 12 seniors on the entire squad.” Pointing up the extreme youth and inexperience of this year's UCLA squad are these numbers — 19 sophomores and 20 fresh man redshirts returning. Among these, no less than five sophs are pencilled in as offensive starters and four as defensive starters, plus eight more listed as second teamers. To complicate matters, Don ahue has switched from the multiple offense to the 1-forma tion to maRe best use of the Photo by Jimmi Harris not have U.S.C. on this year's schedule — everyone's consen sus pick for the Pac-10 crown and challenger for the mythical national championship. Oregon /ftMetto FALL FOOTBALL CLEARANCE Style Riddell Breakaway Riddell Gridstar Riddell 478 Riddell XP Sale Reg. $42.95 $36.95 $30.95 $49.95 $24.95 $20.95 $27.95 $30.95 ALL Speedo Women’s Swimsuits 25% off Cotton Gym Shorts $3.50 and up Oregon VISA •I ON THE DOWNTOWN MALL Hours: Mon-Fri 9-5:30, Sat 9-5 115 W. Broadway Phone 343-1288 talents of quarterback Rick Ba shore (6-0, 186). Donahue says Bruin fans can expect con siderably more passing to balance up the offensive attack, which has gone largely with the ground game in recent years. Last year UCLA averaged on ly 12 pass attempts per game and were under double figures in half its games. In addition, pass completions averaged only 5.6 per game and produced only two scores through the air as compared with 24 by rushing. Last season, Bashore's aerial statistics were 62 completions in 129 attempts for 811 yards, as opposed to his 1977 statistics of 74 completions in 149 attempts for 1,015 yards. The Bruin return to the air can partly be accounted for by the lack of experienced running backs to replace the one-two knockout punch of Brown and Owens, but tailback Freeman McNeil (5-11, 211), who netted 408 yards on 81 carries for a five-yard average as a reserve, will try. The rest of UCLA's rushers are virtually untested, but cannot be dicounted. Donahue says his team’s main strengths will be at tail back, offensive center, tight end, free safety and a returning senior quarterback. He also boasts of a good kicking game, which features senior place kicker Peter Boermeester (5-11, 198), who hit 15 of 21 field goal attempts and 30 of 31 extra point attempts. Handling the punting duties will be 1978 starter Matt McFarland, who averaged 39.1 yards on 80 kicks. “I’d say our main weaknesses are probably depth in the secondary and depth in the defensive line,” Donahue ex plains. “We will have to have a few come-through perfor mances in 1979, particularly against a schedule that has six bowl teams on it." Stanford — First-year coach Rod Dowhower is the rookie among Pac-10 head coaches. And he will be hard pressed to match the 1978 squad’s season record of 8-4 and Pac-10 finish of 4-3. Although the Cardinals will return 35 lettermen and 13 starters — six offensively and seven defensively — there will be some glaring holes to fill by the loss of five key players. The most sorely missed players will be NCAA passing champion Steve Dils; Stanford’s career tackling leader, linebacker Gordy Ceresino and Heisman Trophy candidate Darrin Nel son, the all purpose back sidelined with a knee injury and redshirting this season. The loss of Nelson is par ticularly harmful to Cardinal hopes. The elusive Nelson holds (Continued on Page 7B) DON’T LET THE AGONY OF THE FEET SPOIL THE THHILL OF VICTORY We resole any brand of running, tennis, or basketball shoe at: Rerun,Inc. 1247 Villard, No. B Eugene, OR 97403 (503) 687-9538 <£RU)»
