By Fred Delkin

We’ve perused the pre-season college gridiron published punditry and find the current seers in rare agreement on Pac10 team rankings. The Oregon Ducks are third strongest, behind USC and the California Bears, while Oregon State rates only eighth place...according to a summary of the opinions expressed in Phil Steele, Athlon, Street & Smith and Sporting
News...the longest lived group of crystal ballers.

Each of these forecasting collections places the Ducks among the top 25 nationally, while the Beavers are relegated to no better than 60th among the 119 NCAA Division I schools. Last season Oregon went 7-1 in the Pac 10, 10-2 overall and ranked fifth in the nation. OSU was 3-5, 5-6. This time around, the Ducks will field another squad of national note, but face a tougher schedule...let’s look at it:

9/2 Stanford–a home opener vs. a struggling squad that hasn’t had a winning mark in the past five years. Cards are still a year away from being a fearsome opponent. UO wins easily.

9/9 at Fresno State–Ducks had a narrow win at home in ‘05, are fortunate to face a capable foe that is green at quarterback. Should be close, but Ducks have more tools on offense, will win.

9/16 Oklahoma–a rematch of the Holiday Bowl match UO narrowly lost, 14-17. Sooners have a veteran team pegged as a national title conntender...should be an Autzen classic. Ducks can win, probably lose narrowly.

9/30 at Arizona State–Ducks won easily last year in Tempe, but ASU returns loaded on offense and prepared for revenge. Expect a high scoring contest, slim Sun Devil win with UO still in recovery from Oklahoma titanic.

10/7 at California–Bears lost in overtime at Autzen in ‘05, return a powerhouse expected to finish in national top 10 and coach Jeff Tedford should exact a payback on his former boss.

10/14 UCLA–Ducks return to Autzen’s friendly confines after a pair of road losses and should be fired up enough to stomp a mediocre Bruin group.

10/21 at Washington State–Cougars lost by only 34-31 in this matchup here in ‘05 and have returning tools to make it close again, but UO has more depth and will be hungry to regain stature.

10/28 Portland State–both athletic departments should be ashamed of scheduling this mismatch.

11/4 Washington–traditional Duck rival still unrecovered from scandal and recruiting woes, won’t be likely to reverse last year’s 45-21 rout..

11/11 at USC–Ducks many squad members from southern California will be on a mission and could pull a monumental upset, but Webfoot fans should not wager on such an outcome.

11/18 Arizona–the visitors should be improved from last season’s 3-8 record, but not enough to win at Autzen.

11/25 at Oregon State–the Civil War is never a predictable affair, but Ducks will be favored to forge at least an 8-4 season and a good bowl invitation.

Oregon State should win its opener against IAA Eastern Washington, but after that, we can see no better than a 4-8 season and questions about coach Mike Riley’s Corvallis future. The 9/23 match with Idaho should be interesting as former OSU coach Dennis Erickson returns to Reser
Stadium as the new Vandals mentor. A coaching footnote: Riley’s career record is 28-30, Erickson’s 145-56-1. The Beavers get their three toughest Pac 10 foes (USC, Arizona State and Oregon) at home, but we expect their conference season will not result in more than 3 victories and these won’t come in the aforementioned home clashes.

Duck coach Mike Bellotti enters his 12th year as Duck head man, with a 90-42 record to date. A testament to his ability is that Cal coach Jeff Tedford and Arizona State coach Dirk Koetter both served as Bellotti assistants.

We’ll do a pre-season analysis of the Duck and Beaver ‘06 grid squads next month at the close of fall drills.

Roses & Raspberries...bouquets aplenty for the OSU national baseball champions who proved that home grown talent and desire can overcome the perrenial favorites from warmer climes...nothing but boos for the sorry mess Paul Allen’s ownership has made of a once great NBA franchise, but the Trailblazers did come up with some solid citizens in the just concluded draft...a packet of posies to whomever deals Allen out of the picture and to any teams willing to rid the Blazers of Darius Miles and Zach Randolph...raspberries are awarded to the World Cup soccer matches filled with players collapsing from supposed injury...these dramatists should be assigned to Australian Rules Football where they will feel what bruising is all about!

© 2006 Oregon Magazine