Thur*
Aug
17 1981 GRESHAM (Ore ) OUTLOOK and SANDY (Or« ) POST — 19
It wawn’t long ago O re g o n fa n * felt the
IhiekN could lowe every gam e in a season.
Now there is talk o f w inning every one.
Oregon won’t duck anyone in 1981
| Somewhere along the line w riting season previews for the
(U niversity of Oregon football team became a much easier
[ task It used to be they always turned out sounding like pre-
i mortem obituaries You looked for that one stable vital sign,
[that one blip on the machine But in the end it was always the
‘t t n it result — taps
I That is the way it used to be
I Now, on the strength of back to back winning seasons,
■theie is talk of Pac-10 title contention and bowl possibilities
and, oh. won’t it lx* sim ply dreadful if the Ducks don’t win at
lea t seven games. And now the Ducks are redshirting their
fifth leading scorer of all time because they have plenty of
.Other good ones, and wouldn’t it be nice to have Dwight
»Robertson back next year when Reggie Brown is gone9
t That 's the sort of stuff Oregonians got used to hearing only
[from Washingtonians or Californians That sort of talk four
‘years ago might have got you arrested for possession — at
|h e very least for contriving under the influence
I Well, go ahead, shoot off your mouths, folks It looks like
the Ducks are going to back you up Gee, isn't this fun now?
I Coach Rich Brooks says this is the best team he has had
since coming to Oregon four years ago Mind you, last year's
team, which whomped both Rose Bowl representative
Washington (34-10) and UCLA (20-14) upside the head and
tied USC, was no slouch And, remember, gone from that
team is starting quarterback Reggie Ogburn, Vince
Goldsmith, the Pac-10's defensive lineman of the year, and
eight of their starting compatriots
But remember also that Brooks wouldn't say the light goes
otf in his refrigerator when the door closes unless he had been
in there and seen for himself And think back to his first two
years when he pretty much said the Ducks would be pretty
much awful and they pretty much were And how the next
two years he predicted improvement and respectability, in
that order, and got both and more
In other words, if Brooks says this team is good. then, dang
it, it probably is.
To begin with, Kevin Lusk, heir to Ogburn’s job. has shown
signs of being more than merely capable of fillin g his
predecessor’s shoes Lusk can’t run like Ogburn
few could
— but he could throw a marshmallow through a brick wall
And there are a few brick walls in the Pac 10
Lusk is accurate, also, having completed 64 percent < 46) of
his 72 passes a year ago And if he isn’t the runner Ogburn
was, well, who cares9 The Ducks have running backs for
days and there has to be something for them to do
The main question mark concerning Lusk is his health In
the spring game he sustained, in Brooks' words, “ a p artial
ligament tear of the small, lateral cartilege" in his knee As
to the prognosis on Lusk's complete recovery in time for the
Ducks' opener Sept 5 at Fresno State, Brooks says sim ply,
"K e vin is coming back very w e ll.”
It is quite likely if Oregon had no quarterback at all, it
could win a tew games by sim ply snapping the ball to one of
its talented backs Brown, the Duck's best runner of a year
ago and fifth in the conference with 775 yards, is back for his
senior year You just know he's good; he had to lie. coming
out of Malcom X Shabazz High School m Newark. N J.
Sophomore redshirt H arry Billups, "the fastest back we
have," according to Brooks, w ill back Brown, while Eugene
"Choo Choo” Young and Don Davis back Billups
(Continued on Page 201
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m erhack Dennis Clay returns tn a strong secondary that Is just one part of a strong overall Oregon defense.
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