Smith Ducks Past the Trojans

EUGENE, Ore. — Blame it on the right foot of Adam Abrams, the eyes of Carson Palmer, all the arms and legs that couldn’t catch Oregon quarterback Akili Smith on a 62-yard run, and the chance that Coach Paul Hackett didn’t take.

USC’s mistakes seemed as plentiful as the raindrops Saturday, and the Trojans’ so-close-you-could-taste-it chance to upset No. 12 Oregon was left behind on the damp turf of Autzen Stadium in a 17-13 loss.

“It’s making us sick right now that we lost this game,” tailback Chad Morton said. Abrams, the Trojan kicker who is either very, very good or very, very bad, missed two short field goals in the first quarter, and those six points came back to haunt in a four-point loss.

“You just miss sometimes,” said Abrams, who missed from 28 and 36 yards early and went two for five in the game, including a 49-yard make. “It just happens. I feel bad. I let our team down.”

That was far from the whole ballgame.

“We’re a young team and we made too many young mistakes,” Hackett said.

Palmer, the marvelously talented but still-a-freshman quarterback, somehow missed the 25-second clock ticking down in the fourth quarter and took a delay-of-game penalty from the seven-yard line on what could have been a tying touchdown pass to Mike Bastianelli.

“He never saw the clock,” Hackett said. “If he’d seen the clock, he would have called timeout. We need to get the play in faster, and he needs to learn where the clock is. I think he will.”

Palmer--who relieved starter Mike Van Raaphorst in the second quarter and again in the third--admitted he didn’t see the clock. “I was waiting on the play. I got the play and ran to the huddle as fast as I could and tried to get it off,” he said.

“I thought we were going to score. I knew the play was going to be wide open. I knew if we could get the play off it would be a touchdown.”

But there was no play, and there would be no touchdown, with USC settling for what proved to be a meaningless field goal instead.

Palmer overthrew Windrell Hayes in the end zone on third down, and then Hackett opted to kick a 25-yard field goal to cut the lead to four points with 4:14 left.

USC never got the ball back.

“Tough decision,” said Hackett, who was booed two weeks ago in the game against California for electing to kick a field goal from the one-yard line at the end of the first half in a game that ended in a one-point loss.

“At five minutes [to play], you can go either way,” Hackett said. “If it had been under five yards, we’d have gone after it. I thought if we kicked a field goal the defense would get jacked up. But [the Ducks] got two first downs.”

With a 17-13 lead and time running down, Oregon got a crucial first down on its first play, a 19-yard run by Derien Latimer.

Three plays later, Oregon converted on third and one--another run by Latimer--for another first down with only 1 1/2 minutes left, and USC was powerless.

It was hard for the Trojans to fathom after the game that they had held Oregon--a team that was averaging almost 50 points a game--to two touchdowns and a field goal, and yet lost.

Smith, the quarterback who is left to carry a team after the loss of tailback Reuben Droughns to leg and ankle injuries in the crushing overtime defeat to UCLA last week, took matters into his own hands in the fourth.

“A great player made a great play,” Hackett said. “Akili Smith was the difference.”

His spectacular 62-yard touchdown run when he kept the ball on a third-and-two option play helped Oregon (6-1, 3-1 in the Pacific 10 Conference) to take a 17-10 lead with 10:43 left after the Ducks trailed, 10-3, at halftime.

“I had the pitch on that play,” said USC defensive end Sultan Abdul-Malik, one of the few Trojans who got close to Smith. “I reacted to the quarterback, and I got a hand on him, but a hand is not enough. He’s a good player.”

Smith also made the big play on the tying touchdown, stepping up in the pocket under pressure on third and five to hit flanker Tony Hartley, of Los Alamitos High, over the middle for a 55-yard touchdown play. With the extra point, Oregon tied the score, 10-10, with 10:24 left in the third.

Smith--who entered the game second in the nation in passing efficiency--passed for 231 yards, completing 15 of 28 passes with one touchdown and one interception--only his fifth of the season.

He also bolstered the running game, gaining 97 yards for a net of 72. Latimer led Oregon with 87 yards.

“To win without Reuben Droughns, without Kevin Parker and without Marco Aguirre [all injured], who are really our main motivational players, was great,” Oregon Coach Mike Bellotti said. “This game was extremely important coming off the UCLA game.”

It was also extremely important for USC, which fell to 5-3, 3-2 in conference.

“Even though we lost to Cal, we still thought we had a pretty good chance to go to the Rose Bowl,” said Morton, who scored USC’s only touchdown on a 70-yard pass play from Van Raaphorst in the second quarter. Now the Trojans have to win two of their last four to qualify for any bowl game. Because they play a 12th game, they need seven wins to give them the required winning record.