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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 24, 1997)
H .1 Oregon Daily 1 "1 Emerald Going home Saladin McCullough returns to Los A ngeles to play the _ Troians el ' Vi FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1997 Oregon Ducks vs. USC Trojans at Memorial Coliseum a An independent newspaper Volume 99, Issue 38 INSIDE: Saladin McCullough Feature 2B Opinion 2B Pal Johnson Poster 4B Around the Pac-10 6B ODE Football Kcks 7B The Numbers* Scoring Offense Oregon 4th USC 10th Total Offense Oregon 4th USC 9th Rushing Defense Oregon 10th USC 1st First Downs Oregon 1st USC 10th Turnover Margin Oregon 9th USC 4th ■ Pac-10rank Quotable “R. Jay Soward has had problems the last couple of weeks with cramping. He's a guy with 2 percent body fat, or something like that, a lot like mine.” — John Robinson, USC head coach “We need to understand that every game Is important now for us to have a winning season, to get back into the bowl race and lor our own personal pride.” — Mike Bellotti, Oregon head coach Key Player UO offensive line Playing against the Pac-10’s top rushing defense, Marco Aguirre and the rest of the offensive line will have its hands full. CHAD PATTESON/Emerald The Oregon offensive line unit hate to find a way to make some holes for tailback Saladin McCullough (hack ground) if Jason Maas (foreground) and the rest of the Ducks hope to win at (JSC. The Oregon offense needs to establish itself against tiro of the nation s best cornerbacks and the conference's number one defense against the run By Chris Hansen Assistant Sports Editor Oregon has proven over the course of the last four games that it can handily beat a mediocre team even when not playing its best, and it can hold its own against some of the best teams in the country — but not win. This weekend the test will be to see if the Ducks can beat a mediocre Pacific-10 Con ference team and start to distance them selves from the bottom half of the confer ence and put themselves into contention for a bowl game. Uregon (4-3 over all, 1-3 Pac-10) only has four games re maining on its sched ule, starting with Sat urday’s nationally televised contest in Los Angeles against Southern California (3-3, 1-2). If Oregon wants to be playing in December, this game is a must win. “Last year we qual ified for a bowl and didn’t make it, so I would like to not get to a point where we have to rely on some body else,” Oregon Oregon vs. USC isTime: 7:15p.m. m Where: Los Angeles Coliseum m TV: FOX Sports Net m Radio: 590 AM neaa coacn Mike Heiiotti said. l d like to do it outright, in and of ourselves. But I don't worry about that, and our kids are fo cused on this game this week.” With road games against Washington and Arizona State and a home game against Oregon State, the Ducks have a chance to establish themselves as deserving of a bowl bid. Assuming an Oregon loss to the Huskies and a win over the Beavers (al though neither are safe assumptions), the Ducks will undoubtedly land themselves a bowl game with wins over the Trojans and Turn to PREVIEW, Page 7B Win over Notre Dame gives Troians confidence Southern California comes into Saturday’s game with the confidence it lacked in its 35-7 loss to Arizona State on Oct. 11 By Alex Pond Sports Reporter What a difference a week makes. Seven days ago, Southern California doubted itself as a football team, coming off a 35-7 trouncing at the hands of Arizona State. In the second half of that game, the Tro jans were outscored 22-0, gave up 322 yards of offense to the Sun Devils and had an of fense of their own that did virtually nothing, gaining just 54 yards. As far as a football team’s state of mind goes, USC’s was about as bad as it can get. Following the game, Trojans head coach John Robinson called the loss a disgrace, say ing it was one of the worst efforts he has been involved in as a coach. He even doubted his ability to coach the team and brought up the possibility of his re signing at the end of the season if things don’t turn around. To make matters worse, the Trojans were set to travel to South Bend, Ind., to take on Notre Dame, a place they hadn’t won at since 1981. The Trojans responded to Robinson’s sev eral challenges during the week by defeating the Irish 20-17 on Adam Abrams 37-yard field goal with just over one minute remain ing in the game. Granted, a win over struggling Notre Dame (2-5) is not of the season-making qual ity it once was, but it gave the Trojans a se verely needed boost of confidence and, at least for now, kept Robinson’s job secure. “I was glad the players were able to go back there and win,” Robinson said. “I think they’ll remember that. We had some other issues. This team needed a win, so that was important.” In a span of just one game, the Trojans went from a team that was beaten, battered and had zero confidence to a team that is confident once again and has a little bit of life as it heads into Saturday’s Pacific-10 Conference game against Oregon. However, one win against a downtrodden Notre Dame team does not mean all is well for the Trojans. They still rank near the bottom of the con ference in every major offensive category. They are last in scoring (19.5 points), last in Turn to USC, Page7B use m Rushing defense ranks first in Pac-10 (98.3 yards per game) m Total offense ranks last in Pac-10 (316 yards per game) m Have not had back-to-back losing seasons since 1961
