#2 Oregon Finalizes Game Plan for Saturday Night Match-up with Cougars
#2 Oregon vs Washington State Video Preview
(EUGENE, Ore. ) — When Lane Roseberry took his seat for a team meeting in the Hatfield-Dowlin Complex’s theater this past spring, he’d recently suffered a second major knee injury. He was not only a sophomore, non-scholarship tailback whose skillset was much closer to that of a linebacker – the position he excelled at for tiny Lakeview (Ore.) High – but an injured one, at that.
On the agenda for that meeting was the designation of Oregon’s squad leaders for 2014, the guys who would captain each position, setting the tone for work the Ducks put in over the offseason, through the summer and into the fall. Projected onto the theater’s big screen was a list of names, and on that list was Roseberry’s.
“I saw my name and was like, ‘Are we sure about that?’” Roseberry recalled Thursday, following Oregon’s walk-through for Saturday’s game at Washington State (7:30 p.m. PT, ESPN). “I was astonished.”
Indeed, Roseberry had been voted a squad leader by the Ducks’ running backs, along with senior Kenny Bassett, who once was a walk-on himself. Being named a squad leader put Roseberry into the pool of candidates to be a game captain this fall, and last week against Wyoming he got his chance, going to midfield for the pregame coin flip along with fellow scout-team standout Grant Thompson and junior defensive ends Arik Armstead and DeForest Buckner.
“I didn’t know about that until Friday before the game,” Roseberry said. “It was an honor. It was fun.”
As the visiting team, Wyoming got to call heads or tails. Oregon’s four captains had marching orders from head coach Mark Helfrich as to what to choose should they win the toss, but it was on the players to figure out how that was communicated.
True to their nature as Ducks, they winged it. “We figured it out in the tunnel,” Roseberry said with a laugh. “He tells us what we want, but after that we figured out who was talking in the tunnel.”
Amid the maelstrom of pregame activity just before kickoff, Roseberry said it was hard to tell just how much attention Autzen Stadium pays to the captains as they’re walking onto the field prior to the rest of the team. Regardless, it was an honor he was proud to accept, and a memory he won’t soon forget.
Other observations:
Today was a walk-through of the plays Oregon will run Saturday night, so no highlights to offer. Even though the tempo is slow, though, Helfrich is demanding of the Ducks. “Our standard is our standard,” he told them. “It’s not just, I show up and have to be out here for an hour.” … The Ducks’ travel squad of 70 players, the limit for a Pac-12 road game, has been tentatively designated, and players learned of their roles Thursday afternoon. There's still time to adjust that before the team charter leaves late Friday afternoon. … Oregon’s equipment truck will need a head start, though, and the Ducks had to pack their travel bags today.
Source: Rob Moseley Editor, GoDucks.com
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