Where are the Ducks? Send in the Ducks. . . . . Don't bother, they're here.

[After 6-1/2 quarters, the Oregon Duck offense we had been waiting for finally showed up. Masoli started connecting with his targets (It's not all his fault. How many catchable drops did I count? Five? Six?) The running backs started seeing some holes. Masoli ran brilliantly himself.


And once again, credit the defense for doing everything -- and I mean EVERYTHING -- in their power to give their team a chance to win. All of you "Fire Alliotti" screamers out there need to sit down and cool it.





Oregon's Javes Lewis recovered a fumble for a touchdown to tie the score at 24-24 in the second half on Saturday. -RG Photo
Here's the R-G story.]
Ducks pull no punches Oregon stops a two-point conversion after Purdue’s final touchdown to give Chip Kelly his first win as head coach
By Rob Moseley
The Register-Guard
Appeared in print: Sunday, Sep 13, 2009

A victory that a month ago seemed inevitable instead brought welcome relief to the Oregon football team, as a season and a coaching career that got off to a tumultuous start took a positive turn Saturday.
The Ducks survived a heart-stopping touchdown drive by Purdue late in the fourth quarter to beat the Boilermakers 38-36 before 57,772 in Autzen Stadium. The victory was the first in the head coaching career of Oregon’s Chip Kelly, and provided salve for the still-fresh wounds suffered by the Ducks during and directly after their opener at Boise State.
“This win was huge for our team,” said tailback Kenjon Barner, who helped replace suspended senior LeGarrette Blount and had a decisive fourth-quarter touchdown run. “Just to get us back where we need to be, and get our intensity back up. It will definitely do that.”
The Ducks (1-1) needed a lift, after falling flat against the Broncos nine days earlier and then watching Blount flatten a Bronco postgame, earning his suspension. Though Saturday’s effort was far from perfect for Oregon, it was light years better than the opener.
In the preseason, Oregon figured to be a heavy favorite over Purdue, but those expectations took a dramatic turn after the events in Boise. On Saturday, the Ducks had to survive a touchdown drive by the Boilermakers in the final two minutes and stop a two-point conversation. To Oregon, however, it must have felt like a championship effort in comparison to the opener.
“They’re not even comparable, really,” said UO quarterback Jeremiah Masoli, who directed his unit to 356 yards of offense, more than double their effort against Boise State. “Last week we were all kind of depressed, especially after what happened (with Blount). I’m just glad we regrouped and refocused and got this W.”
The offense still only rarely resembled the powerful machine it was late last season; the Ducks held off the Boilermakers (1-1) thanks to an opportunistic defense. Missed tackles plagued that group, but Oregon scored two defensive touchdowns in a game for the first time since the 2007 Sun Bowl, and made the final, dramatic stop on the two-point conversion.
Kenjon Barner -- RG Photo
The Ducks led 38-30 with 6:42 to play thanks to Barner’s brilliant 21-yard touchdown on an inside zone play, which came with the Ducks facing third-and-19. Purdue responded by driving 70 yards in 14 plays, converting a third down and two fourth downs to get within two on a gadget pass from receiver Keith Smith to Aaron Valentin.
On the two-point attempt, Boilermakers quarterback Joey Elliott saw tight end Kyle Adams in the back of the end zone. Adams caught the pass out of bounds — UO redshirt freshman safety John Boyett, making his first career start
in place of injured senior T.J. Ward, was there to put a hit on Adams and ensure he didn’t sneak a foot inside the backline.
“I saw him there, and the quarterback was scrambling,” Boyett said. “So I went to him, and they threw the ball there and I was able to knock him out of bounds.”
After failing to achieve a first down at Boise State until the third quarter, the Ducks got that out of the way in the first period Saturday. Andre Crenshaw started in Blount’s place, and his scoring run made it 10-7 for Oregon after one quarter.
But the offense stalled in the middle two quarters, with both Crenshaw and LaMichael James losing fumbles, something Blount never did in his abbreviated career. The Ducks were able to find their explosive offensive tempo intermittently but not with much consistency.
“I tell our guys it’s like pushing a rock,” Kelly said. “Once you get the rock going, we’re rolling and we keep pushing at it. After we get that first first down, really the only people that can stop us are ourselves.”
It was Oregon’s good fortune, then, to get two touchdowns on the other side of the ball. Walter Thurmond III returned an interception 18 yards for a touchdown in the second quarter — the Ducks are undefeated (4-0) in games when Thurmond scores, Kelly is fond of pointing out — and Javes Lewis returned a fumble 28 yards in the third quarter.
“We got a lot of turnovers in practice (this week), and it really just translated to the game,” Thurmond said. “Guys were in the right position at the right time.”
Thurmond was also Oregon’s primary kickoff and punt returner Saturday, and he has developed into the Ducks’ most vocal leader, as well.
“He’s just a special, special player,” Kelly said. “Really, I think he’s setting the tone for the rest of this football team right now.”
There are immense challenges looming on the horizon for Oregon in the next two weeks, as first Utah and then California will visit Autzen Stadium. But Oregon’s recovery from the dramatic events of the opener had to start somewhere, a process that began Saturday.
“We have a lot of teachable moments that happened in the football game today Kelly said. “But it’s a lot easier to teach from a winning perspective.”

[That's a nice way to put it. All of you parents out there: Your kids are not giving you problems, messes, disasters, or noisy chaos. They're providing you with teachable moments. "Oh goody, another teachable moment has presented itself, and then I'll clean these poop smears off the bathroom wall."

As for our three-headed running back, I love LaMichael (Little Train) James' game. He has excellent vision and can turn on a dime. Kenjon (Barn Burner) Barner also showed real promise. But although Andre (Uhhh . . . I got nothin') Crenshaw scored a TD, I wasn't convinced that he can make his own plays without the offensive line rolling out a wrinkle-free red carpet for him. No doubt at least one of those three, and probably all three, will have to have career days next week against Utah.
All of the Ducks will have to play better. Below is a splash of cold water reality from John Canzano of the Oregonian.]

Ducks get their first win, but can they get five more?
by John Canzano, The Oregonian
Saturday September 12, 2009, 11:31 PM

EUGENE -- This was better.
Sooooooooooooo much better than last week for the University of Oregon. But so, too, would have been a locust storm in the tailgate lot. Or a paper cut on your left eyeball.
So what we have here is a new day and an engaging perspective.
It was Oregon 38, Purdue 36. Also, it was whew. The season began again. The Ducks made some big plays, gave up some, too, and in the end we're faced with the reality that this season is going to be a grind for Oregon. Also, that the Ducks might not go anywhere meaningful.
Good college football bowl teams block well. And they tackle. And they don't struggle with inefficiency, and penalties and turnovers.
Also, bowl-bound teams blow out marginal opponents at home.
Which is only to say the 2009 Ducks do not look like a bowl team.
What we have here is a Ducks' roster filled with highly recruited talent. And we have a coaching staff that believes it's doing a good job. But if the Ducks fail to win six games this season -- 6-6 makes them bowl eligible -- they end up wasting what should have been a special season.
Oregon drove the ball when it needed to on Saturday. And it stopped the Boilermakers when the situation dictated it.
But the Ducks drop too many passes and miss field goals. They're awful on third down. They take plays off on both sides of the ball. And save for a defense that accounted for 20 points we'd be talking a one-way trip to Palookaville today.
Yeah, the defense won the game. Nobody could miss two defensive touchdowns, one blocked PAT, one critical denied two-point conversion and that interception that set-up an early field goal. Still, eek.
Consider that there will be 68 teams that play in bowl games this season. And bowl invitations will not be granted on the basis of cool uniforms, flashy marketing or TV appearances, but by the bottom line.
Forget the Heisman talk. Forget the Bowl Championship Series pipe dreams. Forget whether the Ducks can stay with USC.
Focus instead on this season's magic number --six. [Did anyone think we would find ourselves back in the Rich Brooks era wringing our hands for six wins? Maybe the Ducks will improve to pre-season expectations and we will have forgotten all about Boise State. But right now, its looking like we picked a bad time not to schedule Portland State, Idaho, or Eastern Washington like (uh-hum) some other teams did. Purdue was our patsy opponent for the season.]
As in, who else can the Ducks beat this season? Can they get to six victories with Utah, Cal, Washington State, UCLA, Washington, USC, Stanford, Arizona State, Arizona and Oregon State on the schedule? Can you circle five victories in that last sentence? Because after two weeks, even with a 1-1 record, there has to be reasonable doubt every week.
Before the Purdue game, the Ducks assistants piled onto the elevator at Autzen, heading up to the coaching box. After last week, they had circles around their eyes. But hope in their hearts. And you can only get along for so long wishing and troubleshooting, and right now the Ducks season feels light on substance.
Sure, the Ducks won. Yes, they did it during a week in which they absolutely had to come away with a victory. Uh-huh, it felt better than the disaster a week ago in Boise.
Again, this is a game that ended with Purdue scoring on a halfback pass and attempting a two-point conversion with everyone thinking, "Overtime?"
It ended with Purdue's Kyle Adams catching the two-point attempt, but with his foot coming down a few inches out of bounds.
It's the degree of difficulty that concerns me today. And it should concern you, too. Because Purdue isn't a top half of the Big 10 team, and past Ducks' teams (the good ones) would have put up 50 and blown the Boilermakers out of Autzen.
Chip Kelly's team feels more blue collar than previous Oregon teams. And maybe that mettle will manifest itself in the coming weeks. But also, there will have to be an improvement in efficiency and in the basic tenets of football.
Block. Tackle. Pass. Run.
Oregon isn't doing any of those things right now in a way that resembles a team headed to a bowl game.
Not yet.
Maybe not at all. [Well thank you for peeing on the candles of our "Feel Good" cake, Mr. Canzano. I'd be upset except that I think he's partly to mostly right. We'll just have to wait and see one game at a time. That's how the Ducks plan to approach the rest of this season.]