Sports Editor
Peter Hockaday
peterhockaday@dailyemerald.com
Tuesday, January 7,2003
-Oregon Daily Emerald
Sports
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Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Duck season
Adam Amato Emerald
Onterrio Smith's future is still up in the air, but his knee injury midway through
the season hurt the Ducks'offense in the second half of the year.
The Oregon football team reflects
on a season that ended with
a monumental second-half slide
Peter Hockaday
Sports Editor
Four numbers to tell the story.
6-0.
1-6.
Those first two numbers? That’s how
Oregon started the 2002 football season.
Those last two? That’s how the Ducks
finished.
Put them together and it’s 7-6. That’s af
ter years when Oregon fans saw the num
bers soar, from 6-5 in 1996, to 7-5, 8-4, 9
3,10-2 and 11-1 in the subsequent years.
And after six games of the 2002 season,
it looked like the Ducks were going to soar
again, perhaps even higher than before.
But then it all came crashing down, as a
freshman Arizona State quarterback led a
second-half charge that opened the flood
gates for offenses playing the Ducks over
the rest of the season, right down to lowly
Wake Forest in the Seattle Bowl. Then Ore
gon’s star running back went down with an
injury, and the offense wouldn’t come back
from a deficit to win for the rest of the year.
That’s a recipe for 1-6 disaster.
“We’ll think about this season for a
while,” quarterback Jason Fife said.
And after a season with such a severe
downturn at its end, the Ducks, like Fife,
could only think “why?” They couldn’t an
swer that question, but could answer the
question of “how?”
Over the first six games of the season,
Turn to Season, page 10
Adam Amato Emerald
Igor Olshansky (53) comes up with Oregon's only sack of the Seattle Bowl in the
first quarter. Olshansky returns next season to anchor the defensive line.
Ducks must improve defensive secondary
With one of the worst pass defenses
in the country, Oregon has much work
to do on defense before next season
Adam Jude
Senior Sports Reporter
Maybe it’s not such a bad thing that
the Oregon defense is losing six starters
to graduation.
Then again, it doesn’t make the challenge of
getting better any easier.
If anything is certain for the Oregon football
team, it’s that the defense has to improve dras
tically before next season for the Ducks to
even dream about contending for the Pacific
10 Conference title.
Sure, the Oregon offense struggled at the
end of the 2002 season, but not as much as
the Oregon defensive secondary, which
ranked 115th out of 117 Division I teams by
allowing 295 passing yards per game. With
two first-year starters at the corners — jun
ior Steven Moore and true freshman Aaron
Gipson — the Ducks allowed 33 touchdowns
through the air this season, the worst in
the nation.
That defensive weakness was never more
clear than in the Seattle Bowl on Dec. 30,
when Gipson was beaten twice for 57-yard
and 63-yard scores in a 38-17 loss to
Wake Forest.
“That’s the story of our life,” senior line
backer David Moretti said after the bowl game.
“We’ve done that a lot this year. We’ve let
teams score points on us that they don’t earn.
We let them get two 60-yard bombs and spot
ted them 14 points. If you want to beat a good
football team, you can’t spot them points.”
The Ducks, who finished with six losses, the
most since 1993, hope an offseason of hard
work will help its defensive backs. It should
help that junior safety Keith Lewis, a second
team aIl-Pac-10 selection, has said he will stay
for his senior season.
But along with rover Rasuli Webster, a
three-year starter, the Ducks’ secondary will
lose its coach. After two years as Oregon’s
secondary coach, Mike Gillhamer has left
for Louisville, where he’ll be the defensive
coordinator.
In the middle, Oregon loses Moretti, the
team’s leading tackier this season, and Garret
Graham, the starting outside linebacker for
most of the season. The lone returning line
backer, junior Kevin Mitchell, knows there’s a
lot to do before Oregon’s first game at Missis
sippi State on Aug. 30.
“The younger guys coming back, we’re just
going to have to regroup and learn how to
work and learn how to play with heart, pride
and desire — learn how to play football,”
Mitchell said. “All we do is go to school and
play football. School’s not that fun. Why not
take what’s fun and go with it, make it the best
time of our lives? We’ve lost some of that.”
What the Ducks have lost in the secondary,
they should gain up front — with the intent
of not letting their opponents gain anything
on the ground. One positive for the Ducks is
that they allowed just 106 rushing yards per
game in 2002.
The transition to replace starters Seth McE
wan and Darrell Wright at the defensive end
positions should be fairly smooth because of
the late-season emergence of Devan Long and
Rod Wright.
At tackle, Oregon has little to worry about.
With Igor Olshanksy, a sophomore, and
Turn to Defense, page 10
Ending the season in a cold\ Husky-filled Seattle endzone
Any endzone, at a college football game, is
generally packed.
In Seahawks Stadium for the Seattle Bowl,
the south endzone was mostly empty — save
for a few Oregon fans and an equivalent num
ber of Husky Hecklers.
By the end of the game, the Huskies — now
converted Wake Forest fans — outnumbered
the Ducks left in the endzone.
It was like a bad commercial for Southwest
Airlines.
“Want to get away?”
Who didn’t?
Well, Wake Forest, I suppose.
Oregon and its fans needed the Seattle Bowl
the way a straight-A student needs mono dur
ing finals week.
The Seattle Bowl wasn’t going to help the
Ducks finish above eighth in the Pacific-10 Con
ference, and it certainly didn’t help redshirt jun
ior Onterrio Smith with his NFL draft-ability.
Even after surgery, Smith wasn’t able to become
super-human and single-handedly save the
Ducks from the bottom of
the Pac-10 barrel.
Oregon fans went to
the game for the love of
their school and their
football team. They went
to see the promise of a
new season and the end
to this one.
Unfortunately, Duck
fans were let down before
the game even started.
“Priority seating,” as
was promised by the Ath
letic Department, equat
ed to 300-level, nosebleed seats offered for the
same price as many of the stadium’s 100-level
seats. If it had rained during the game, those
seats would have been the priority because
Mindi
Rice
The girl
and the game
they are the only ones under a roof.
Was the Athletic Department really worried
about Oregon fans getting wet? Chances are,
many of the fans at the bowl game were also in
attendance at either the 2001 Civil War or this
season’s contest against the Huskies. Even
Seatde weather is rarely as harsh as the weath
er at Autzen Stadium during those two games.
Duck fans can handle harsh weather.
Empty seats — especially when closer and
the same price, however, are something Ore
gon fans don’t take lightly.
Unfortunately, the only rain was on the
Ducks’ parade.
The low-lights started December 28 with the
Pike Place Market fish toss.
Anyone could tell Oregon wasn’t all excited
about being there. Wake Forest brought their
cheer squad to the fish toss as well as other
members of the team besides those catching
salmon. Oregon only sent the four players who
had to befriend the frozen fish.
Wake Forest won the fish toss, as they would
the game.
Everywhere Oregon fans went, the Husky
Hecklers were sure to go. First to the fish toss,
then at the pep rally and finally to the game.
With all the Huskies in attendance, the
stands at the Seattle Bowl were more exciting
than the game itself.
There must have been almost as many
Washington fans as Wake Forest fans, with
many of the Huskies migrating to the endzone
by halftime.
After one radio station in Seattle encouraged
Huskies to attend the game as newly crowned
Wake Forest fans, the Demon Deacons must
have been more than happy to welcome some
locals into the crowd. The trek from North
Carolina is pretty long, after all.
From the stands, the game didn’t look like a
Turn to Rice, page 10