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Delay, then deluge;Football Oregon;After a stumbling start, Oregonscores 45 consecutive points for
Byline: Rob Moseley The Register-Guard
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - For those Ducks who were at Michigan in 2007, it was a familiar moment.
"Playing in a big stadium, coming out with a big win," UO linebacker Casey Matthews said. "The fans were all excited, and I'm sure the community back home is excited."
When the seventh-ranked Ducks were done trashing Tennessee 48-13 on Saturday - after they got done stepping on their own feet for the first quarter - they ran over to a corner of the field and stood at the foot of a brick wall, celebrating with the few thousand Oregon fanswho made the trip to Neyland Stadium for the game.
For anyone who was at the Big House for the Ducks' blowout of Michigan three years earlier, the scene was a familiar bit of revelry, infact an almost exact replica, right down to Oregon's uniform combination of green helmets, white jerseys and white pants.
A difference this time was that Oregon was expected to come to thehome of one of college football's proud traditional powers, before acrowd numbering in six figures, and thoroughly pound them. And also,a difference this time is that the outcome was at one point very much in doubt.
The Ducks, after all, trailed 13-3 after a wild first act that included the strange scene of a 70-minute weather delay.
Just before that break, in the middle of the first quarter, the UOdefense returned to the field after a fumbled kickoff return. At that point, this game felt not like one of Oregon's all-time great nonconference triumphs, but like one of the Ducks' all-time lowest moments, at Boise State in 2009.
"It was hard," Matthews said. "We had to go right back out on the field. But we know what kind of team we have."
And what is that? How about a team that is 2-0 on this young season, and looking at the moment very much like the front-runner for the Pac-10 championship, as they were projected to be following their 2009 title season.
That group from last season was never able to recover from its shocking first half at Boise, losing its first major test. This time, the Ducks rallied for a halftime tie, and then blew the doors off the Vols in the second half.
"You've got to be able to handle that, and I think we've got a mature team," UO coach Chip Kelly said.
The pregame thinking went that only a horrendous start and an uneven performance by Darron Thomas could keep the Ducks from blowing outthe Volunteers, who are suffering from a lack of continuity among the coaching staff the past three years. But Thomas handled himself with aplomb, the Ducks benefited from their depth and conditioning, and so many other playmakers came through that Oregon was able to win even though the start was indeed horrendous.
"We were doing the right things," said UO tight end David Paulson,who caught a touchdown pass from Thomas for the second straight game, tying the score 13-13 entering halftime. "We just needed to keep itup, and wear them down."
The Vols had opened the game with a 31-yard running play and opened their second drive - following a fumbled kickoff return by last week's star, Kenjon Barner - with a 21-yard rush. As expected, the Vols tried to use multiple tight ends and a fullback to pound away at the Ducks.
On both of the early explosion plays, UO safety Eddie Pleasant hadto make a touchdown-saving tackle.
"They put me there for a reason," said Pleasant, a converted linebacker who is among the fastest players on the team. "Some of the things I did today."
One can only wonder what might have been had Pleasant not made those plays, had Tennessee scored touchdowns instead of settling for field goals. Instead the Vols reached the end zone just once, before theDucks came storming back.
The Ducks opened the second half with a punt, but forced the Vols to do the same. It didn't seem so at the time, but that might have been when the game changed.
"Once (Oregon's defense) started stopping them, the offense started feeding off them," said Thomas, who went 17-of-32 for 202 yards with two touchdown passes in his biggest test yet as the UO starter.
Before the game, Kelly had joked with Tennessee defensive coordinator Justin Wilcox about the latter's supposed mastery of Oregon whilecoaching at Boise State the past two years. In the second half Saturday, the Ducks turned the subject into a laughing matter.
Oregon's second possession after halftime was one for the ages. LaMichael James, the Pac-10 freshman rushing record-holder returning from a one-game suspension, started off to his right, broke back to theleft sideline, cut back again inside the red zone and dove in for 72-yard touchdown.
Thomas threw a key block early in the run, receiver Lavasier Tuinei denied two potential UT tacklers, and Jeff Maehl's late effort allowed James to finally reach the end zone, 17 seconds after he'd left the line of scrimmage.
"I was very determined," said James, who finished with 134 yards on 16 carries. "We needed a boost."
Pregame weather warnings in Knox Country proved prophetic at that point - the floodgates were open. Cliff Harris returned an interception 76 yards on Tennessee's next possession, and the Ducks scored three times in the fourth quarter.
Ultimately, Oregon put together a 45-0 run after falling behind 13-3. The Volunteers were out of gas.
"Right after I made the play, I could see the life come out of them," Harris said.
The rest of the game seemed a mere formality. Tennessee had no answer for Oregon's speed, depth and resiliency. And in the end, the Ducks got to run over to a stadium wall and celebrate another program-defining win with the UO faithful, Kelly's wishes be damned.
"What coach wants us to do is get in (to the locker room) right after a game," said UO defensive tackle Brandon Bair. "But when our fans come all the way out here for the game, they deserve to be recognized."
The adulation, in that crowing moment, most definitely went both ways.
