State of Oregon goes home early

The Pacific Life Pac-10 men’s tournament has barely started and the entire state of Oregon has already been eliminated.

The Oregon State Beavers opened up the tourney with a 62-54 loss to Stanford in the 8-9 game and then the Oregon Ducks closed the night off with a 62-40 defeat to Washington St.

Even though both Oregon teams lost, it seems the two programs are heading in opposite directions. First-year coach Craig Robinson is beginning to rebuild the Beaver program, while Ernie Kent has the majority of the team that finished 2-16 in the conference coming back.

Robinson’s job security is obviously for a number of years and could run for the mayor of Corvallis and win by a landslide. Kent is not in that position in Eugene, however. Followers throughout the Ducks’ fan base have been looking for an excuse to fire Kent for a number of years and a 2-16 season and a quick exit in the league tourney, might give them the ammunition to put enough pressure on the administration to do it.

At least the Ducks and Beavers have baseball to look forward to as the two teams are playing well. OSU is 7-3 overall and the Ducks, who have revived the baseball program after a 28-year absence, are 6-6.

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 Rotten Apples Produce Exciting Finish in Apple Cup

The Pac-10’s two worst teams played to an exciting 16-13 double overtime finish in what many expected to be an ugly affair.

Washington coach Tyrone Willingham seemed to have positioned his team, and himself, for its first victory of a very disappointing, and thus far winless, season. With just over one minute remaining in the game, the Huskies punted the ball away—the game was now in the hands of their defense.

During Washington State’s final drive, QB Kevin Lopina marched his team down field 69 yards in seven plays leaving just enough time for the Cougars to send the game in to overtime on Nico Grasu’s 28-yard field goal.

Each team exchanged field goals sending the game to a second overtime. After Huskies kicker Ryan Perkins missed a 37 yard attempt, the game was once again in the hands—or on the foot, rather—of Grasu as he booted the game winning 37 yarder.

This is Washington State’s fourth Apple Cup victory in the last five years.

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 Around the ‘Net: Pac-10 News and Notes (Oct. 14)

42 points—That is the current spread for the USC-Washington State game. Seems a little low to me as I can only picture the Trojans using this game to gain more confidence and to “impress” pollsters with a high scoring affair. What—you think it doesn’t happen?

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This week (Oct. 19) we get to witness No. 5 Cal at No. 4 Stanford—in women’s volleyball. I’ve mentioned before how the Pac-10 is dominating much of the Top 25. This match not only pits the two top ranked Pac-10 teams, but both teams put their 11-match win streak on the line.

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It seems as though Oregon has finally be able to solve one of their QB issues—Chris Harper: They simply moved him to WR. Looks like he’ll remain at that position for the remainder of the season.

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Having the 114th ranked rushing offense won’t win you many game. Just ask UCLA.

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 So you want to play QB?

Washington State is holding open tryouts for the scout team QB.

Wait! Are you serious?

Absolutely.

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Quarterback tryouts

The Cougars are holding a “campus tryout” for quarterback Monday. No kidding.

“We have to find somebody for the scout team,” coach Paul Wulff said.

WSU lost both Gary Rogers and Kevin Lopina to back injuries two weeks ago, and are starting redshirt freshman Marshall Lobbestael while Lopina recovers.

“I’ve never had to do this before,” Wulff said. “There’s got to be somebody enrolled that has played quarterback.”

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It seems as though there are no able bodied players on the current practice squad who are capable of filling in.

Perhaps the real answer is there are no players who dare become a QB in the Pac-10. You know—what with Gary Rogers and Kevin Lopina (Washington State), Nick Costa, Justin Roper, and Jeremiah Masoli (Oregon Ducks), Patrick Cowan and Ben Olson (UCLA), Sean Canfield (Oregon State), and Jake Locker (Washington) all going down at one point or another with injuries. (Gee, did I miss any?)

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 Oregon Runs Over Wazzu

The Oregon Ducks went to the Palouse and beat down the outmatched Washington State Cougars 63-14.

Oregon racked up a total of 507 yards with 346 being on the ground and seven rushing TD’s. Jaison Williams also managed to receiving TD’s.

Washington State, on the other hand, accumulated only 271 total yards.

With the way Oregon has been losing QB’s, it was nice to finally see there wasn’t a single injury to that position.

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