Smith Has Oregon Back in the Running

The cover boy is Joey Harrington, the quarterback promoted with that larger-than-life Heisman Trophy ad hanging in New York for all the world to see. His trusty sidekick is Maurice Morris, the tailback promoted with that ridiculously long banner on the freeway near Los Angeles International Airport.

Yet Harrington and Morris were supporting actors Saturday.

The leading role belonged to backup tailback Onterrio Smith, who ran for all three Oregon touchdowns and set a school record with 285 yards rushing as the Ducks scrambled the Pacific 10 Conference standings and terminated Washington State’s unlikely run at a national championship with a 24-17 victory over the Cougars.

This game started late in the afternoon, after Oklahoma and Virginia Tech had lost, after UCLA and Maryland had lost. That left the unheralded Cougars as one of four undefeated major college teams, alone atop the Pac-10 and sneaking up the BCS rankings toward a bid to play for the national title.

No longer. The Rose Bowl will likely go on without the Pac-10 this year, and the 11th-ranked Ducks (7-1, 4-1) and the 14th-ranked Cougars (7-1, 4-1) join UCLA, Stanford and Washington atop the conference standings, all with one loss and all now aspiring to play in the Fiesta Bowl.

To the Ducks, this is fine. Their national championship hopes--and Harrington’s Heisman hopes--were dashed in an upset loss to Stanford last week. Harrington’s statistics against the Cougars were strictly pedestrian--he completed 14 of 26 passes for 119 yards--but the Ducks rushed for 446 yards. That won’t win a quarterback any trophies, but the Ducks won.

“I had an easy job,” Harrington said, “just hand the ball off and watch them run. Any time we can run for 450 yards, that’s a great day for a quarterback.”

The Cougars were not in the mood to contemplate the Fiesta Bowl, at least not immediately after the loss. National championship runs are few and far between around here.

“We are a better team than Oregon,” Washington State quarterback Jason Gesser said. “But we didn’t play better on the field today.”

The Cougars had averaged 44 points a game, tops in the conference and third in the nation. They put up 45 points on Stanford, 48 on Arizona, 51 on California. Aside from a field goal set up by a trick play--a 63-yard pass thrown by flanker Collin Henderson, who took a pitch from backup quarterback Matt Kegel and threw back to him--the Cougars did not score until the fourth quarter.

Henderson passed for more yards than Harrington in the first half, but by halftime the Ducks had the lead for good.

Morris, who started and split time with Smith, ran for 143 yards before pulling his left hamstring in the third quarter. Smith took it from there.

With a steady rain falling in the second half, with the Ducks leading, and with Morris injured, everyone in the stadium and in nearby Idaho knew Smith was going to run. He carried 26 times--including on 13 of the Ducks’ 15 offensive plays in the fourth quarter--and still ran away from the Cougars.

“I haven’t touched the ball that much in a long time, probably three years,” said Smith, a transfer from Tennessee.

“We tried to do everything we could, X-and O-wise, to stop him,” Washington State Coach Mike Price said, “but we were off balance every time he was running by us.”

In the second quarter, Smith literally flattened Washington State safety Billy Newman at the three, on the way to an eight-yard touchdown run. In the third quarter, on the way to a 41-yard touchdown run, he got past Washington State defensive end D.D. Acholonu so quickly that Acholonu, on his knees, pounded his fists into the ground before getting up.

In the fourth quarter, with Oregon trying to run out the clock and the Washington State defense keying on him, Smith squirted through a hole and ran 73 yards for a touchdown without getting so much as touched.

“I kind of had a grin on my face,” he said. “I knew where I was going, and they didn’t.”

Gesser had 10 of his 17 completions in the fourth quarter, as the Cougars scored two touchdowns and nearly scored a third, one that would have tied the score.

Washington State got one last chance, with the ball at their 14 and 1:21 left, and Gesser completed four passes to give the Cougars first-and-goal at the Oregon eight.

The next four passes fell incomplete, the game ended, and the nightmare began: If Smith gained 285 yards rushing against the Cougars this week, what could DeShaun Foster--the nation’s leading rusher--and UCLA do next week?

‘I’m sure they’re licking their chops,” Price said.