Sports Editor:
Peter Hockaday
phockaday @dailyemerald .com
Best Bet
MLB: Seattle at Boston
4:05p.m., FSN
Tuesday, August 14,2001
Lock down
the hatches
and players
Warning: The following
column is based on an
unsubstantiated story,
one of those friend-of-a
friend-of-a-friend type things. You
have been warned.
Hey Joey ... no more Taylor’s, bud
dy. Forget about Rennie’s Landing,
and say “hasta la vista” to Rock ’n’
Rodeo.
No more drinking for you, buddy.
Time to play football.
You see, that friend-of-a-friend saw
you throwing back a Full Sail at the
bar the other night. My advice to you,
buddy (you don’t
mind if I call you
“buddv”l. is to lav
off the booze for a
while.
You see, Joey,
you’ve got a job to
do. Last year at
this time, you
could have drunk
I every night if you
^ wanted to, because
the Ducks weren’t
even close to being
ranked.
Hockaday
Two minutes for But now, no
crosschecking ,more Budweiser,
-— buddy. Oregon is
ranked up the wazoo and can’t afford
to have a hung-over quarterback come
Sept. 1.
That goes for you, too, Onterrio.
Man, you came here from Tennessee
and thought you could get away with
some drunk driving? No more speed
ing, no more alcohol, no more noth
ing.
And don’t think you’re not account
able here, Coach B. You need to keep
these boys in line. If I ran the Oregon
football team, I would quarantine
those boys in the University Inn,.with
shackles on their arms when they
weren’t practicing, so they wouldn’t
try to break free.
That’s what we’ve come to, isn’t it?
Don’t tell me you don’t feel this hype.
Don’t tell me the Sports Illustrated,
the ESPN, The Associated Press all
mean nothing. It’s different now.
You want respect? You got it, Ducks.
Don’t screw it up.
If you screw this up, forget about re
spect next year. Forget about ESPN
calling you “the team to beat” in the
Pacific-10 Conference. Forget about
the 100-foot billboards.
It’s taken a while to build this.
Coach B., you know that.
Before Coach B. except for that Rose
Bowl year, of course, people used to
go “Oregon? Where the heck is Ore
gon?”
Then you won a few choice games
last year, and they went, “Oh, I get it,
there’s Oregon.”
Then, you lost that little Civil War
thing (did I even have to bring it up?),
and they went, “Oh, I get it, Oregon
STATE is where it’s at.”
So far this year, they’ve been going,
“Civil War, man, that’s the thing.
That’s the game to watch.”
And Joey goes, “You know it.”
“I feel like I didn’t put my team in a
position to win that game last year,”
Harrington said at Oregon’s media day
Friday. “That’s what I want to do this
Turn to Hockaday, page 6
HI M
Jessie Swimeley Emerald
Oregon head coach Mike Bellotti addresses members of the media Friday. Bellotti said that the Ducks are ‘excited’ about the nation’s high expectations of Oregon.
Ducks ready to start playing football
■ Oregon tried to ignore the
preseason hype and spoke of
getting down to business at its
annual media day Friday
By Peter Hockaday
Oregon Daily Emerald
Joey Harrington summed up
the thoughts of the Oregon foot
ball team in a few words at the
Ducks’ media day Friday.
“We’ve just been talking about
the season,” Harrington said.
“Now it’s time to play.”
At their last official talk ses
sion before the start of daily dou
ble practices, Harrington and the
rest of the Ducks tried desperate
ly to cut through the hype —
Oregon was ranked No. 7 by The
Associated Press Saturday —
and just talk football.
The offense will be good. The
secondary will be better. The
special teams are a problem.
The season can’t get here fast
enough.
“This season began the day af
ter we beat the University of
Texas in the Holiday Bowl,” Ore
gon head coach Mike Bellotti
said. “It’s about time we got start
ed playing.”
The Ducks’ veterans began
twice-daily practices Saturday
after the newcomers reported
last week.
Bellotti and Harrington,
among others, touted the Ducks’
offense as the team’s bright spot
heading into fall camp.
“I’ve never seen this much tal
ent on a football team,” Harring
ton said. “I think defenses are go
ing to have a tough time
preparing for every facet of our
offense.”
Oregon will return many of
last year’s top skill-position play
ers, including Harrington, run
ning backs Maurice Morris and
Allan Amundson, tight end
Justin Peelle, and receivers
Keenan Howry and Sarnie Park
er.
“This is the best offense I’ve
ever played on,” Amundson
said. “Some people say it could
be Oregon’s best offense ever.”
The defense is more of a ques
tion, one that Bellotti said needs
to be addressed in fall camp. The
secondary is strong, and return
ing cornerbacks Rashad Bauman
and Steve Smith are considered
among the best in the Pacific-10
Conference. But the defensive
line lost key players in Saul Patu
and Jason Nikolao.
The Ducks don’t see that as a
problem.
“The defense will be different
because we lost some guys,”
linebacker Kevin Mitchell said.
“But every year guys step up. We
look good and fast.”
Although the players wanted
to avoid it, the hype eventually
crept into media day. Reporters
fired off questions about the
Turn to Football, page 8
Emerald
Allan Amundson (34) hopes to keep his feet on Autzen’s new turf.
New turf should give Ducks
same old Autzen advantage
■The Oregon football team says
that Autzen’s new NeXturf is fast and
should help the Ducks this season
By Peter Hockaday
Oregon Daily Emerald
Allan Amundson likes NeXturf.
Allan Amundson ran a blistering 40
time of 4.33 seconds on NeXturf.
Any questions?
Many people, including Oregon
players and coaches, have been won
dering whether their new turf will pro
vide the same home-field advantage as
the old, thin AstroTurf that lay on
Autzen Stadium’s floor until last year.
The verdict?
“It’s going to continue to give us a
home-field advantage,” Oregon head
coach Mike Bellotti said. “This turf is
just the next generation of what we
had.”
“It’s a little faster than the old turf,”
linebacker Kevin Mitchell said. “But
it’s going to affect other teams as well.”
Mitchell’s next four words summed
it up perfectly.
“It’s still Autzen Stadium.”
While the Ducks will have only a
month to prepare on the turf before
their home opener against Wisconsin
Sept. 1, other teams won’t be able to
prepare for it at all. Oregon is the first
college to lay down the revolutionary
playing surface.
Some Ducks, such as running backs
Amundson and Maurice Morris, will
surely benefit from the faster turf. Both
backs have outside-running ability, and
the fast surface will help them around
the corners.
The Ducks hope to keep Morris fresh
this season, as the running back tailed
off toward the end of the season.
“We ran him down a bit last year,”
Bellotti said. “Our hope is to get Mau
rice some more rest this year.”
Morris will get help from Amund
son and transfer tailback Onterrio
Smith, who came to the Ducks from
Tennessee this offseason. Smith had
189 yards on 31 carries as a freshman
at Tennessee, before violations of
Turn to New turf, page 6