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Show Utes Face Oregon in Home Opener 4-H 4 I A," Y ' , f , V ' By MAC BACKMAN Utah's amazing football Redskins, Red-skins, who almost but not quite pulled the impossible against Minnesota, will open the 1967 home football season against Oregon, Ore-gon, Saturday at 1:30 in Ute Stadium. Stad-ium. Saturday's game is a non-conference battle, but that doesn't mean it lacks stakes. Utah and Oregon are much more bitter rivals than most people know. Why? Because Coach Mike Gid-dings' Gid-dings' Utes tipped Oregon 17-14 last season in Eugene, Oregon. Everyone from Salem to Portland figured that Oregon would be two touchdown favorites and that Utah would return home losers. Unfortunately Unfor-tunately for the Ducks, things didn't turn out that way. Two years ago, Oregon embarrassed embar-rassed the Utes 31-14 in Ute Stadium. Stad-ium. The way the Ducks outshined the Utes that September, 1965 night, the Utes were lucky that the score was that close. So during the last two years, both Utah and Oregon have made the other's home fans sad. Utah will attempt to stop this foolishness Saturday afternoon. Judging from the Redskin performance per-formance last Saturday against Minnesota, the Utes should be favored fav-ored to win this Saturday's game in a real thriller. The Utes showed what they could and could not do last time out. One gets the impression im-pression that there are a lot more can's than can'ts. One thing for sure the Utes have an offense. The runners, primarily halfback Charlie Smith, fullback Steve Mollnar, and quarterbacks Jack Gehrke and Tim Collins, gained 253 yards against the potent Minnesota defensive line. Gehrke and Collins completed 14 passes in 28 attempts for 153 yards. Oregon, 0-2 so far in '67, has it's own big guns in sophomore quarterback quar-terback Tom Blanchard and backs Jim Evenson and Claxton Welch. According to Oregon sports publicist, pub-licist, Hal Cowan, Blanchard is the biggest cannon in the Duck arsenal. Blanchard has completed 8 out of 12 passes during limited action (he's been out with an ankle injury), in-jury), but he'll start against Utah. Flanker Ray Groth will join Gehrke, Mollnar, and Smith in the starting backfield for Utah. Groth, along with split end Jack Andrews and tight end Jim Rees, gives Gehrke and Collins some of the best pass receiving ever seen at Uteville. If the injured Louis (Speedy) Thomas plays at all, Utah's mountain air will be saturated sat-urated with footballs. Blanchard, Welch, and Evenson will join flanker Roger Smith in a backfield filled with speed. Cowan Cow-an said in a Thursday interview, "I promise you that Oregon will be the fastest team Utah will play." He may be right. Blanchard will throw to ends Scott Cress and John Roche. Utah's interior offensive line of Joel Trachtenberg and Armin Blau-fuss Blau-fuss at tackle, Norm Chow and Gerry Tollman at guard and Kent Ramon at center is injury-free and intact, but the defensive line has lost tackle Manny Fernandez for several weeks. Defensive starters are Norm McBride and Gary Kerl at ends; Joe Johnson and Vyron Bougerr at tackles; Doug Poulson Dwight Staten, and Larry Stone at linebackers; and Jerome Lawson, Leon Paulos, Jim Street, and Gary Barker at defensive backs. The Oregon defensive line up is one of the lightest anywhere on campus. The two tackles, Jack Rust and Jeff McCrae, are the only Duck starters over the 200 pound mark. The rest of the defensive alignment Cam Molter and Dennis Den-nis Gassner at ends, George Dames at Middle Guard, Kent Grote and Keith Sherman at linebackers, and Olmi Hildreth, Jack Gleason, Jim (Yazoo) Smith, and Cam Sinclair at defensive backs mostly weigh in the 190 pound to 200 pound bracket. Yazoo Smith is the best Oregon player, according to Cowan. He is a potential ail-American. Oregon's offensive line is much bigger than the defensive "front four". Tackles Warner Wong and Jim Wathey, guards Jim Nicolaisen and John Luger, and center Tom Wooton will attempt to protect fair-haired fair-haired quarterback Blanchard. Oregon's biggest problem, said Cowan, has been too many mistakes. mis-takes. "Against California in our first loss, we were ahead going into the final quarter. But two intercepted in-tercepted passes killed us. Against Colorado, we threw six interceptions intercep-tions and lost the game. When Blanchard was in, he moved the team, but he hardly played because be-cause of his ankle injury." Utah made a potful of mistakes against Minnesota and almost won. Oregon isn't as strong as Minnesota. Minne-sota. If the Utes play flawlessly, they might win easily. If not, look Oregon Quarterback Tom Blanchard will lead passing attack in seeking seek-ing the Ducks' first win. a - v i , Iff f r ' x; I yuf Ayr-r , , ,x. A : . , ' v-- I I i t - - ' 'x ) I - ' ' : I ; ivt I "Y-l Out to foil Oregon's aerial success will be rover Jerome Lawson, who already snared one interception against Minnesota. |
