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A two-star recruit in high school, Khalil Oliver is fighting for his place on the field at Oregon.
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STACK UP OREGON EXPOSES FLAWS LAST WEEK, LOOKS TO RESPOND AGAINST COLORADO (Emerald Archives)
➡ JUSTIN
WISE, @JUSTINFWISE
Multiple Oregon players and coaches used the term “snowball” to describe Utah’s 62-20 thrashing of the Ducks on Saturday. And that’s a simple way to assess it. By the end of regulation, Oregon had suffered one of the worst losses in Autzen Stadium history and exposed more flaws than the team has strengths. Vernon Adams Jr. left the game in the second quarter, Jeff Lockie threw two interceptions and Utah’s offense rolled right over the Ducks’ hapless defense. The loss left Oregon unranked for the first time since 2009, and also makes this week’s matchup against Colorado that much more interesting. The quarterback position has a big question mark next to it. The Ducks’ secondary – a group that has been outperformed all year – has not shown any signs of improvement. Even more, Byron Marshall left Saturday’s contest with a leg injury and is mostly likely done for the season. Colorado is riding a three-game win streak coming into this Saturday and poses a threat at wide receiver. Buffaloes’ wide receiver Nelson Spruce caught 106 passes for 1,198 yards and 12 touchdowns in 2014 and has 25 receptions for 276 yards thus far this season. Here’s how Oregon and Colorado stack up:
OREGON OFFENSE VS. COLORADO DEFENSE The glaring question for Oregon’s offense is who will start at quarterback. Adams started Saturday, but exited in the second quarter. While he contends that his broken index finger is not an excuse for his performance, offensive coordinator Scott Frost told reporters Monday that Adams couldn’t put “any steam on the ball” during the game. If that continues to be the case, Lockie could start against Colorado. Judging by his latest performance though, in which the junior completed 50 percent of his passes with two interceptions, the quarterback position appears to be in flux. On the other hand, Colorado’s defense is coming off its first defensive shutout since 2009. The unit is allowing 16.5 points and 341.2 yards per game. However, this will be Colorado’s first true test of the season, especially when considering the team did not win a single Pac-12 game last year.
The Emerald is published by Emerald Media Group, Inc., the independent nonprofit media company at the University of Oregon. Formerly the Oregon Daily Emerald, the news organization was founded in 1900.
NEWSROOM EDITOR IN CHIEF DA H L I A BA Z Z A Z X 3 2 5 PRINT MANAGING EDITOR COOPER GREEN D I G I TA L M A N A G I N G E D I T O R JACK HEFFERNAN HIRING AND TRAINING DIRECTOR K AY L E E T O R N AY MANAGING PRODUCER SCOTT GREENSTONE AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT DIRECTOR KIRA HOFFELMEYER
DESIGNERS JACK GRAHAM RAQUEL ORTEGA JARRED GRAHAM GINA MILLS OPINION EDITOR TA N N E R O W E N S SPORTS EDITORS JUSTIN WISE H AY D E N K I M KENNY JACOBY NEWS EDITORS JENNIFER FLECK F R A N C E S A F O N TA N A LAUREN GARETTO
COLORADO OFFENSE VS. OREGON DEFENSE Colorado’s offense is averaging 35.7 points and 272 rushing yards per game this season. Its rushing average is ranked 13th in the nation and uses a trio of capable running backs. Christian Powell, Phillip Lindsay and Michael Adkins II have all ran for over 210 yards on the season and have all scored three touchdowns a piece. Those three names should be paid close attention to, as Oregon’s rushing defense was gauged for 273 yards last week. But Colorado may try to attack the Ducks through the air given Oregon’s continued struggles at defensive back. As mentioned before, Spruce is one of the most dangerous playmakers in the Pac-12 and the Buffaloes have an experienced quarterback behind center in Sefo Liufau. While Liufau hasn’t put up any impressive statistics this season, it’s a sure bet that head coach Mike MacIntyre is aware of the Ducks’ weakness in the secondary.
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TURNING OVER THE RANK ➥ J O S E P H H OY T, @ J OE J H OY T
Khalil Oliver playing in Oregon’s home game against Utah on Sept. 26. (Cole Elsasser)
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There are three boxes in Lamont Oliver’s downstairs office at his Merdian, Idaho, home, filled with recruiting letters and scholarship offers. He was a prized running back and pitcher, who was offered the chance to suit up at schools like USC, Penn State and Texas A&M. Lamont rarely pulls out the boxes, but he remembers showing them to his kids twice. His point: to illustrate that they had the potential to fill boxes of their own when they grew up. During his senior season of high school in 2013, Khalil Oliver showed his dad his own box of letters and offers. Inside were envelopes with school logos from the Mountain West Conference, the Pac-12 and the SEC – not the list of schools a two-star recruit normally boasts. But his heart was set on one place and one coach.
“I was going to stay in Idaho and I was going to play for coach [Chris] Petersen at Boise State,” Khalil said. “And then he left.”
During his first visit to the Oliver home — a Monday evening in December 2013 — Petersen was telling Khalil, who had enough high school credits, to enter college early. They had plans for Khalil at Boise State, and he couldn’t be happier. Friday morning of that same week, after Khalil had made himself a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Lamont asked his son if he had checked his phone. He hadn’t, but when he ran upstairs and saw 30 text messages, Khalil was shocked. Petersen was leaving Boise State for a five-year, $18 million deal at the University of Washington. Khalil never got the chance to be the hometown kid – Meridian is approximately 12 miles from Boise, Idaho. He ended up at Oregon, and in his second season, he’s become a featured part of the rotation at safety for the Ducks’ secondary. In the recruiting world, he was labeled as a two-star player by Yahoo– an also-ran in a 2014 recruiting class filled with stars. But in his redshirt freshman season, he’s starting to stick out. “It’s nice to make a name for myself, not having to base my playing ability on what I did in high school, but being able to
show what I can do in college,” Khalil said. Lamont used his experience as a high school football coach to calm his son down after plans fell through with Boise State. “Sports – and we try to teach our players and I try to teach my kids this – are a microcosm of how life works,” Lamont said. “Things happen on the football field: you get sudden changes and turnovers – things you didn’t expect to happen, happen. And it’s all about how you react to it.” “Khalil got back up and said, ‘let’s figure out what we’re going to do next.’” Scott Criner doesn’t call Oregon defensive backs coach John Neal very often. Criner, Khalil’s head coach at Rocky Mountain High School, coached collegiately for 27 years. He was on the same defensive staff as Neal at the University of Pacific in the late ‘80s. Criner knows what it takes to play for a coach like Neal – a player must be obsessed with detail and the craft of improving. Khalil fit all the criteria. “I don’t call him very often and tell him I have a guy,” Criner said. “But with Khalil, it was easy for me to call John.” “That’s almost my greatest evaluation – when I know somebody and they know the kid and I trust that guy,” Neal said. “Everything [Criner] said about [Khalil] was right: he’s extremely smart, tough and 100 percent work all the time … now we just have to help him become a really great player for us.” Idaho isn’t a state filled with Division I football prospects. In any given year, Criner guesses about five players from the state will play at the highest collegiate level. But, being a college coach for as long as he was, Criner knows which players have the talent to make it. “If you’re good, they’re going to find you,” Criner said, “and when they do get found, they’re going to play.” That’s why Criner continuously told Khalil not to look on any recruiting sites. Criner knew Khalil had the ability to play at the next level. Still, the idea that players from Idaho naturally get overlooked in comparison to recruits from bigger states like Texas or California irked Khalil. “Recruiting sites would rate me as a two-star on a website, but then I’d have a coach – who the ranking basically said I’d never get an offer from – out at my practice watching me. He’s in my house talking to me, asking me if I would come to his school,” Khalil said. “Rankings really don’t even matter. A lot of the times, you don’t even know the person who’s ranking you. They’ve probably never stepped
foot in Idaho.” After Petersen left for Washington, Khalil didn’t hear anything from the new staff at Boise State. Unsure where he stood with the school, Khalil reopened his recruiting. His box, like his father’s had, continued to fill with letters. Khalil took official visits at Washington and Oregon, but this time around, he had a new approach. “I wanted to go to a school, not for a coach, but for myself,” he said. On his visit at Oregon, Khalil went out of his way to make his own visits with people in the chemistry department --his major. He had learned his first time going through the recruiting process not to go to a place solely for football, but rather, a place that set him up for success, both on and off the field. Khalil’s father knew firsthand how important college was outside of sports. Even with three boxes filled with recruiting offers, Lamont never played Division I football. A torn ACL in his senior year of high school forced him out of the sport. He went to the University of Wyoming before transferring to play baseball at Midland Lutheran College, a NAIA school. Lamont made sure that his kids knew that there was more to life than sports. Khalil made that a priority in his college choice.
“You’re never promised another day of playing,” Khalil said, “but school is always going to be there for you.”
Each week, Khalil has seen more playing time. He recorded a single tackle, on special teams, in his first game against Eastern Washington. Last week, in Oregon’s 62-20 loss at home to Utah, Khalil played the majority of the second half. He’s got six total tackles and a tackle for loss coming off the bench this season. For people who only looked at the two-stars next to his name on recruiting sites, seeing Khalil on the field might come as a surprise. But to his family, and the people of Meridian, his early success is anything but a shock. “He always had the work ethic and the drive to be successful,” Lamont said. “I expected him to be able to get on the field and play well.” T H U R S D AY, O C T O B E R 1 , 2 0 1 5
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When Oregon met an Urban Meyer-coached Utah team in 2003, the Ducks were ranked No. 22 in the nation. Oregon was coming off a tightly contested 31-27 win over a No. 3 Michigan team that would go on to repeat as Big Ten champions. Oregon fans were thrilled to be in the national discussion. Mike Bellotti, one of the pivotal pioneers and engineers that laid the foundation for Oregon’s future success, was the head coach. Looking back at it now, that year was the climax of a former, respectable Oregon self – the one that came just prior to former head coach Chip Kelly’s installation of the up-tempo spread offense. During this time, 10-win seasons and major bowl appearances were not taken for granted. Soon after the Ducks’ dramatic win against Michigan, Oregon dropped back-to-back losses. After its loss to No. 19 Utah at Rice-Eccles Stadium 17-13, Bellotti had an epiphany: that Oregon’s overall approach to the game was limited. This is what Mark Helfrich needs to keep in mind as he seeks for answers to the Ducks’ glaring problems on both sides of the ball following their 62-20 loss to Utah last Saturday. Not that he needs to completely throw everything out the window, but it’s clear that the program has run into a wall. Bellotti’s gut feeling 12 years ago ended up being the driving force behind a complete overhaul, one that would soon open way for Kelly’s creativity. After the 2003 season, Bellotti tackled his program’s most pressing issue head on, stepby-step, by being open-minded. He understood that his program needed serious change if it was going to make legitimate leaps towards national contention. In
turn, coordinators were brought in and schemes were changed. The main transformation — that involved a major level of risk — took place on the offensive side of the ball, where the spread offense entered its infant stages under then offensive coordinator Gary Crowton. It might be worth it for Helfrich to look into a similar type of approach to a blatant obstacle. It’s been seven years since Kelly first took over as Bellotti’s offensive coordinator. To put things into perspective: Oregon dropped out of the AP Top 25 Poll for the first time since Kelly took over as head coach in 2009. During the Kelly era, Oregon went to two Rose Bowls (winning one against Wisconsin in 2011,) won three straight Pac-12 titles, appeared in its first national championship game and boasted a 46-7 record. Just like Bellotti hoped for, Kelly successfully manufactured a new breed of Oregon football under the “Win the Day� mantra. Never once did the Ducks get blown out the way it did on Saturday. Before this loss, the Ducks had been ranked for 98 consecutive weeks, which was the secondlongest active streak in the nation, behind Alabama’s 120 consecutive weeks. There is something to be said about great coaches like Urban Meyer and Nick Saban who have, time and time again, re-invented their programs. It’s what’s kept them and their teams in the national spotlight for so long. Nobody knows how Helfrich will respond to this mess. But if he wants this program to thrive in the College Football Playoff era, changes are due. Bellotti brought Kelly in 2009 to give new life to Oregon. What will Helfrich do?
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WHY COLORADO WILL BEAT OREGON ➡ JARED
(Courtesy of The CU Independent)
In early September, the thought of Colorado beating Oregon this Saturday was ludicrous. The Buffaloes had lost an ugly game at Hawai’i and the Ducks were ranked No. 7 in the country, not to mention last year Oregon beat CU 44-10 in Eugene. But since then, the teams have headed in opposite directions. CU has rattled off three victories in a row, including an emotional overtime win over in-state rival Colorado State. UO came close on the road to beating now No. 2 Michigan State, and not much needs to be said after Utah’s 62-20 beat down of the Ducks. The questions that will be answered this Saturday are how far has Oregon fallen, and how much has Colorado improved? It may turn out that last Saturday’s blowout was an anomaly — you never know — but it’s difficult for the Buffaloes to look at the Utah game and not gain confidence. So far this year, the Oregon defense has been soft. It gave up 42 points to FCS opponent Eastern Washington and hasn’t held anyone to less than 28. Utah quarterback Travis Wilson hadn’t thrown a touchdown all
F U N K - B R E AY, T H E C U I N D E P E N D E N T
**Editor’s Note: Each week during football season, we feature an essay from the opponent’s student newspaper on why Oregon will lose. Funk-Breay is a sports editor at The CU Independent.**
year until he threw four against the Ducks. Furthermore, the Colorado offense is much more balanced than in years past, with a solid rushing and passing attack. Surprisingly, after quarterback Sefo Liufau’s record-breaking season last year, the Buffs have relied more on the running game. CU has averaged 272 yards rushing in its first four games and has three different rushers with more than 200 yards this season—Michael Adkins, Christian Powell and Phillip Lindsay. The passing is still nothing to scoff at. Liufau is hitting 59 percent of his passes and has thrown only one interception—a vast improvement over his 15 picks last year. Senior wide receiver Nelson Spruce still has some of the best hands in the country, and sophomore Shay Fields adds a speedy deep threat at Liufau’s disposal. Defensively, the Buffs are still far from perfect, but new defensive coordinator Jim Leavitt has created a more aggressive 3-4 scheme. CU has already forced more turnovers than it did last year. If Colorado is going to pull off an upset, it’s going to have to make some impact plays on defense, and
the Ducks have proven they are more than susceptible to that. In close games, as this one has a good chance of being, it often comes down to which team has the better quarterback play. Whether it’s Vernon Adams Jr. or Jeff Lockie for Oregon on Saturday, neither has looked comfortable in the offense. Liufau has played in six one-possession games in his past last twelve dating back to last year. The team hadn’t won any of these until Colorado State, which felt like a break through for the Buffs. The bottom line is Adams’ and Lockie’s experience pales in comparison to Liufau’s. Colorado fans are more excited for this game than anything in a long time. Folsom Field should be packed and loud once the 8 p.m. kickoff comes around, with fans striping the stadium in silver and black sections. Home field advantage should make a huge difference. The Buffs want nothing else but to prove to their national ESPN audience they have finally arrived as a force in the college football landscape. Come Saturday I think the Buffs will take another step forward, while the Ducks take another one back.
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