Oregon Ready For Pac-10 Showdown With Cal

Game five: #11 Oregon at #16 California, 5:00 PM, Memorial Stadium Berkley, California.

Photo: goducks.com

EUGENE - The University of Oregon football team (4-0, 2-0 Pacific-10 Conference) hits the road for the second consecutive week to face California (4-1, 2-0).

The Ducks have won four-straight games and after a season-opening loss at Tennessee, the Bears are also the winners of four straight contests. Both teams are perfect in conference play and each will look to extend the win streak to five games this week.

HEAD COACH MIKE BELLOTTI - 12TH SEASON

When Mike Bellotti was elevated to head football coach at the University of Oregon on Feb. 13, 1995, few people could have envisioned the impact the former UC Davis honors student would have on a university, as well as a community, which was coming off its first conference championship in 37 years.

In the 11 seasons that followed, all he accomplished would be the navigation of a program through its most successful era in school history. With a win over Fresno State in the second week of the 2006 season, Bellotti became the Ducks’ all-time winningest coach and is now 94-42.

He has guided Oregon to the No. 2 ranking in the country and a Fiesta Bowl win following the 2001 season. Bellotti has led the school to nine bowl appearances in his 11 years at the helm, tallied eight or more wins in a single season seven times, accumulated the second-most victories (94) of any program in the league during his tenure and has overseen a team that has finished among the nation’s Top-20 four times in the past seven seasons. None of his 29 Oregon predecessors can match his timetable for success as well as few in the Pacific-10 Conference.

The “dean of the Pac-10” is ninth all-time in conference wins (58-32) while only four former league mentors (John Robinson, Don James, Terry Donahue and Larry Smith) were able to post more conference triumphs than Bellotti in their first 10 years in the Pac-10. He Began the 2006 campaign only one victory shy of Rich Brooks (1977-94) as the winningest football coach in school history and his winning percentage of 69.1 percent trails only Hugo Bezdek (72.7%—1906, 1913-17) among Oregon’s all-time mentors who coached the Ducks a minimum of three seasons.

Guiding the Ducks to an unprecedented seventh-consecutive bowl appearance in 2003, the Northern California native has played a vital role in assembling more than 24 percent (133 wins) of the University’s all-time triumphs (536) since assuming the role as the school’s offensive coordinator prior to the 1989 season.

In addition, only six active Division I coaches in the country have guided their current schools to more postseason appearances than Bellotti has at Oregon while he began the year ranked 16th on the list of winningest active Division I-A coaches in the country.

SCOUTING CALIFORNIA:

• The Bears have scored more than 40 points in each game of current four-game winning streak • Defensively, California leads the league in passes intercepted with eight. All-Pac-10 CB

Daymeion Hughes is the individual leader with five of those picks, two of them returned for TDs

• QB Nate Longshore leads the league in pass efficiency (174.6) and TD passes (14).

• Wide receiver DeSean Jackson leads league in TD receptions with seven

• Taiback Marshawn Lynch has four straight 100-yard rushing games and is averaging 111.0

• Head coach Jeff Tedford is 37-18 overall since taking over in Berkeley and has led the Bears to four straight winning seasons and three straight bowl games.

• Longshore has been named offensive Pac-10 Player of the week twice already this season.

TIES WITH THE BEARS :

• Head Coach Jeff Tedford served as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach under Oregon head coach Mike Bellotti from 1998-2001.

• California defensive coordinator Bob Gregory was the defensive backs coach at Oregon from 1998-2000 and was the Ducks’ graduated assistant in 1989-90.

* Bears wide receivers coach Dan Ferrigno coached Oregon’s receivers from 2001-05. Ferrigno and current Oregon secondary coach John Neal coached together at Oregon State (1987-89).

• California linebackers coach Bob Foster was the defensive coordinator/linebackers coach for the Ducks from 1998-99. Foster coached Oregon head coach Mike Bellotti and Oregon defensive coordinator Nick Aliotti when they played at UC Davis.

• Bellotti coached with Foster at UC Davis from 1973-75 as did Aliotti (1976-77) and Oregon assistant head coach Neal Zoumboukos (1972-78).

• California running backs coach Ron Gould was the graduate assistant at Oregon in 1990-91...As a player, Gould was a starter for the Ducks in 1987 after transferring from Wichita State.

• Mike McHugh, who is California’s director of football operations, served in the same capacity at Oregon from 1999-2000.

• California recuriting assistant Kevin Parker graduated from Oregon in 1999 and played tailback and wide receiver for the Ducks from 1996-99.

CALIFORNIA LAST WEEK VS. OREGON STATE:

Quarterback Nate Longshore threw for 341 yards and four touchdowns, including two to Marshawn Lynch, and No. 20 California defeated Oregon State, 41-13. Lynch finished with three touchdowns for the Bears, running 15 yards for another score. It was his fourth straight game, and 13th in his career, with at least 100 yards on the ground. He has seven touchdowns.

Cal rushed for 142 yards compared to Oregon State’s 56. Lynch had 106 yards rushing. For Oregon State, Alexis Serna hit field goals of 58 and 40 yards, and a turnover led to the team’s lone touchdown.Longshore completed 22 of 31 passes with one interception in his third game this season with at least four touchdowns.

SEEING RED:

When it comes to red zone offense, the Ducks are nearly perfect. In four games this season, Oregon has been in the red zone 23 times and has scored 21 of those times (91.3 %). The are a perfect 10-for-10 in their last two games, scoring all seven times when arriving in the red zone at Arizona State after converting on all three appearances vs. Oklahoma in week three.

RESERVES CARRY INJURED DEFENSE:

With injuries becoming all too common to Oregon’s defense, there were some new faces on the field last week at Arizona State. Defensive tackles Cole Linehan (broken foot) and Jeremy Gibbs (ankle), linebacker Brent Haberly (broken arm) and cornerback Jackie Bates (broken leg) were not available to play when the Ducks took the field in the second half. (Linehan did start, but was injured in the first half).

So the new faces — Dexter Manley, Terrell Ward, Michael Speed and Jerome Boyd — helped limit ASU to 175 total yards (just 33 passing yards). The defense had six sacks and allowed ASU just one third down conversion in 13 attempts. Ward — in his first game for Oregon — picked off his first career interception.

MANLEY II BREAKS OUT:

In his first extended action of the season, defensive end Dexter Manley II had three sacks for a loss of 15 yards. Manley had just one tackle heading into the game and his performance didn’t go unnoticed as he was named the Walter Camp Football Foundation’s defensive player of the week. Unlike his father of the same name, the younger Manley did not grow up playing football.

In fact, he specialized in basketball at the high school level before first taking up football two years ago at Santa Monica Junior College.

HONORS CANDIDATES:

Center Enoka Lucas and free safety J.D. Nelson loom as Oregon’s highest decorated returnees as the pair garnered second-team Pac-10 all-conference accolades last season. The Ducks also will benefit from the return of three honorable mention all-league standouts in rover Patrick Chung, wide receiver James Finley and offensive tackle Max Unger.

Unger also attracted Freshman All-America acclaim as a 12-game starter at left offensive tackle as a redshirt freshman while Chung was tabbed by The Sporting News as the conference’s Defensive Freshman of the Year.

OFFENSIVE EVOLUTION:

When Oregon adopted the spread offense prior to last season, personnel dictated the emphasis on the passing game -- which the Ducks have become more associated with since the mid-1980s. As a result, Oregon finished 2005 ranked third in the Pacific-10 Conference (and 8th nationally) in passing offense (304.5 avg.), with it accounting for 69 percent of its offense through the air.

It averaged 134.3 yards-per-game running the football to finish seventh in the Pac-10. Coach Bellotti stressed last spring that improving the efficiency of the running game would certainly become a priority this year in order to complement the offensive transformation.

After four games the Ducks have achieved that goal, as the percentage of passing yards in the total offensive scheme has dropped to 54 percent. Oregon ranks eighth in the country in rushing offense (227.5) and 18th in passing (269.5).

MORE RUNNING:

While admittedly there is a lot of football to be played, Oregon last led the league in rushing offense in 1955 and last averaged better than 200 yards rushing in 1980 (213.3 avg.). The closest it game to the latter pinnacle was in 2001 when the Ducks averaged 192.7 yards per game.

That’s the same year they won the Fiesta Bowl to finish the year ranked second in the country in both major polls. After four games, Oregon leads the league in rushing offense with a 227.5-yard average.

JONATHAN AND JEREMIAH:

One was hailed as one of Oregon’s biggest recruiting coup in recent history as the nation’s top running back recruit. The other received as much attention on signing day in February of 2005 in professional sports vernacular as the ever-popular “player-to-be-named-later.”

Yet the tandem has proven to become the program’s best tandem of running backs in five years. Jonathan Stewart still commands most of the headlines but it has been Jeremiah Johnson who has been anything but second string. Adding 89 yards last week at Arizona State, Johnson has averaged 8.1 yards per carry through four games this year (compared with Stewart’s 7.9 avg.).

In addition, Johnson has averaged 60.5 yards rushing as a sophomore while last year’s rushing leader - Terrence Whitehead - averaged 61.7 ypg. Although he is tied for second on the team in all-purpose yardage this season, Johnson’s 115.5-yard average exceeds last year’s leader - Whitehead - who averaged 106.3 yards per game.

STEWART STRETCHES IT OUT:

While Jonathan Stewart had returned four kickoffs for more than 40 yards each in less than two seasons in his collegiate career, fans had been waiting for him to break a run from scrimmage longer than his 33-yard game from a year ago. He finally rewarded the patient onlookers with a 63-yard gain vs. Arizona State.

Averaging 114.2 yards per game despite picking up only 3 yards on his only carry at Fresno State due to injuries, he would be averaging 151.3 yards per game if you could take the one appearance out of the equation.

The one element of his game that also has improved from a year ago has been his skills as a receiver. Stewart already has caught three passes for 33 yards this year after finishing 2005 with seven catches for 45 yards.

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