COLLEGE FOOTBALL / CHRIS DUFRESNE : Under New Coach, Oregon Proves Up to the Challenge

When Rich Brooks left Oregon to coach the Rams and took half the staff with him, most people expected the Ducks to waddle back to the bottom half of the Pacific 10 Conference standings.

Oregon was the defending conference champion and had 15 returning starters in 1995--more than any team except UCLA and California--yet received no first-place votes in a preseason Pac-10 media poll.

The Ducks, 11th in the final 1994 AP rankings, began the season unranked.

The reason?

“Me, in particular,” first-year Oregon Coach Mike Bellotti said from his office in Eugene.

Not that there was any, gulp, pressure. As Bellotti was reading “how-to” books on becoming a head coach, the school was canonizing Brooks, who led the Ducks to their first Rose Bowl appearance since 1958.

In a ceremony early this season, Oregon named the playing field in Autzen Stadium “Rich Brooks Field.”

Well, Mr. Bellotti?

Turns out Oregon pushed the right button when it promoted Bellotti from offensive coordinator.

While there will be no Rose Bowl repeat in Eugene, the 8-2 Ducks have a chance to improve on Brooks’ 9-4 record of last season and record the school’s first 10-victory season.

“”I think the question mark was in other people’s minds,” Bellotti said of early skepticism. “I can’t control what the media say. We’re not the largest media center, here in Eugene, so we’re going to be dependent on other people’s perceptions.

“I told our team that. I sort of challenged them. I said we have to go out and prove last year wasn’t a fluke, and obviously I think they’ve done that.”

Bellotti, 44, soon discovered what kind of team he had. Oregon opened with three tough victories over Utah, Illinois and UCLA.

UCLA was a watershed, the Oregon defense stopping tailback Karim Abdul-Jabbar on a game-ending goal-line stand to preserve a 38-31 victory.

“I thought it would take a game like that to cement the chemistry or bond that group again,” Bellotti said.

Despite conference slip-ups against Stanford and Arizona State, the No. 16 Ducks are poised to close out Oregon State on Saturday and possibly earn a trip to the Cotton Bowl, where Oregon last appeared after the 1948 season with Norm Van Brocklin at quarterback.

Bellotti owes a lot to Brooks, who hired him as offensive coordinator in 1989. They talk by phone at least once a week, and they’ll always have September, in which Oregon started 3-0 and Brooks’ Rams won their first four.

“It was sort of neat there for a while, matching each other in victories,” Bellotti said.

Brooks set the standard and keeps Bellotti in the pressure cooker.

“It’s not having the field named after him,” Bellotti said, “but Rich was here for 18 years, through good and bad. He basically built a lot of this program with dogged determination.”

Bellotti’s work is not done. As anyone north of Redding knows, Oregon-Oregon State is one of those things, like sunshine, that no Oregonian takes for granted.

The Beavers (1-9) have won the last two games at Eugene.

“One of the positive things for us is that we have a lot riding on this game,” Bellotti said. “In the past, when they’ve defeated us, we haven’t had as much importance on the game. But they’ll come ready to play. This is a true state rivalry. It pretty much divides the state.”

And, in Oregon’s case, the seed from the Cotton.

NO PRESSURE, FELLAS, BUT . . .

There’s nothing like the purity of amateur athletics, playing for the love of sport, and $8 million riding on the outcome. That’s the wheel-of-fortune spin Notre Dame takes this weekend when the Fighting Irish (8-2) travel to Colorado to take on Air Force (7-3).

Talk about your must-win games. In accordance with Notre Dame’s deal with the new bowl alliance, the Irish are guaranteed a spot in the Sugar, Fiesta (not likely) or Orange Bowl if they finish ranked in the top 10.

Notre Dame is eighth in the Associated Press poll and 10th in the USA Today / CNN coaches’ poll, but a loss to Air Force would knock it out of the alliance mix, and perhaps out of any bowl consideration.

“It’s my understanding that if we don’t win this game, we don’t go to a bowl,” Notre Dame Coach Lou Holtz said this week.

The payoff? The alliance bowls will award $8.3 million to each participating team. If Notre Dame loses and settles for the Liberty or Independence bowl, it’s looking at $750,000.

Notre Dame will play Air Force and its option offense without starting quarterback Ron Powlus, out for the season because of a broken arm.

Holtz, as you might expect, is petrified.

“They’re awfully, awfully good,” he said of Air Force. “No doubt they’re the best service academy team.”

WHAT IF

What if Northwestern (9-1) had not blown a 21-point lead and lost at home to Miami of Ohio on Sept. 16? Wouldn’t Northwestern have a claim at No. 1 based on victories over Notre Dame, Penn State and Michigan?

Northwestern Coach Gary Barnett, however, refuses to let the Miami game creep into the headset or the mind-set.

“No, we learned that if you hang onto that, it’ll trap you somewhere else,” Barnett said. “Never talked about it. Never touched it. It’s over. You’ve got to make something good about it and go on.”

DEEP THOUGHTS

--They’re a shambles, losers of two in a row. Their best running back is out (probably), and they’re up against an archrival, on the road, with an inexperienced quarterback.

What chance do the UCLA Bruins stand against USC this weekend?

Zilch. The Trojans can mail it in. In fact, someone at USC film school should make a holier-than-thou commercial, something over-dubbed with that marching band mantra and air it during the first quarter of Saturday’s telecast.

Yep, UCLA has about as much chance of winning as the San Francisco 49ers had against the Dallas Cowboys.

--That warm air Nebraska quarterback Tommie Frazier feels is Eddie George breathing down his neck. Just when Frazier got the go-ahead to clear off a shelf for the Heisman Trophy, George, the Ohio State tailback, did a little 314-yard stomp against Illinois last weekend.

Frankly, it wouldn’t be upsetting to see George beat Frazier in a Heisman photo finish.

--No problem here with Lloyd Carr being retained as Michigan coach. Carr has done a swell job since taking over last spring for Gary Moeller, forced to resign in disgrace after a drunken incident in a suburban Detroit restaurant.

Carr’s hold went from interim to permanent this week based on his team’s 8-2 record.

Based on Michigan’s 5-0 victory over Purdue last Saturday, though, wouldn’t Carr have been a better choice as Wolverine baseball coach?

--Same time next year? Every time you start to consider San Diego State football again, the Aztecs go belly-up against Wyoming.

Wyoming knocked San Diego State out of two bowls, in ’92 and ‘93, the latter all but sealing Al Luginbill’s walking papers.

Ted Tollner’s Aztecs had won six in a row and cracked the top 25 for the first time since 1992 until Saturday night’s 34-31 loss.

Give a holler, Aztecs, when you beat Wyoming or the Cowboys get out of the Western Athletic Conference.

--The Ohio State Buckeyes, if they are still thinking about a national title, should be screaming for USC to beat UCLA by at least three touchdowns to ensure the Trojans have a top-10 ranking before the Rose Bowl.

--A “distinguished” panel of voters left Northwestern linebacker Pat Fitzgerald off the list for Butkus Award finalists. Does Dick Butkus know about this?

AROUND THE HORN

What you need to know about the bowls: Four of the 36 bowl slots are locked up. USC clinched a Rose Bowl berth, and East Carolina secured a spot in the Liberty Bowl. Nevada and Toledo meet in the Las Vegas Bowl on Dec. 14.

The rest is a mess. Yes, the Fiesta Bowl can still get its battle of unbeatens Jan. 2 if Florida and Nebraska win out. Yes, the Orange Bowl, with the third and fifth picks in the alliance, has pondered a matchup between Notre Dame and Miami. Yes, the Sugar Bowl is still anyone’s guess.

Yes, No. 4 Tennessee can still win the national title. If Notre Dame loses to Air Force, the Volunteers could be tabbed for the at-large alliance pick. But so, too, might Northwestern.

No, No. 8 Notre Dame and No. 10 Texas can’t meet in an alliance game because the teams have already played this season (Notre Dame won, 55-27).

Because the Big East and Atlantic Coast conferences do not have tiebreakers to determine champions, co-champions Virginia Tech and Virginia can expect to be bypassed by the alliance in favor of Miami and Florida State.

Fair-weather fans: Through four games, Orange Bowl attendance for Miami games is down 43%. This, despite the resurgence of the 6-3 Hurricanes under first-year Coach Butch Davis, who has led his team to five consecutive victories and a top 25 ranking.

According to the NCAA News, Nebraska has played the toughest schedule among the four remaining undefeated Division I-A teams (the others are Florida, Ohio State and tick . . . tick . . . tick, time’s up: Toledo). Nebraska’s schedule, however, ranks only 22nd overall. Among top 10 teams, Notre Dame’s schedule ranks third toughest nationally, and Northwestern’s ranks sixth.

Ohio State Coach John Cooper called George’s 314-yard rushing day against Illinois “the best display of running back that I’ve seen since I’ve been in coaching.”

Northwestern’s Fitzgerald, heart and soul of the Wildcats’ defense, underwent surgery Sunday and had a screw inserted in the lower left leg he broke in Saturday’s victory over Iowa. Fitzgerald’s leg will remain in a cast for six weeks and he will sit out the rest of the season.

Class act: Iowa Coach Hayden Fry sent Fitzgerald a get-well letter. “I think he’s one of the most outstanding linebackers in college football,” said Fry, who was impressed Fitzgerald did not allow himself to be dragged into trash talk before the Iowa-Northwestern game. “I think Fitzgerald went beyond the call of duty to keep the game of football in proper perspective.”

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Top 10

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No. Team Record 1. Nebraska 10-0 2. Florida 9-0 3. Ohio State 10-0 4. Tennessee 8-1 5. Florida State 8-1 6. Northwestern 9-1 7. Kansas State 9-1 8. Colorado 8-2 9. Texas 7-1-1 10. Michigan 8-2

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Waiting list: 11) Notre Dame (8-2); 12) USC (8-1-1); 13) Virginia (8-3); 14) Arkansas (8-2); 15) Alabama (8-2); 16) Oregon (8-2); 17) Kansas (8-2); 18) Texas A&M; (6-2); 19) Penn State (6-3); 20) Auburn (7-3); 21) Virginia Tech (8-2); 22) Washington (6-3-1); 23) Syracuse (7-2); 24) Clemson (7-3); 25) Miami (6-3).