Previous Season
The 2008 Oregon Ducks football team entered the season ranked 21st in the AP Poll, after finishing the 2007 season ranked 23rd. The major question going into the season concerned the position of quarterback. Oregon's top two quarterbacks, Dennis Dixon and Brady Leaf, had graduated the year before, with Dixon being drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers in the fifth round of the 2008 NFL Draft.
Sophomore Justin Roper was named the starter after Nate Costa suffered a season-ending injury before the season began. As a freshman, Roper had led the Ducks to a Sun Bowl win over South Florida in 2007. He was injured in the third game at Purdue, and was replaced by junior college transfer Jeremiah Masoli. Masoli had led his junior college team to a national championship the year before. Masoli was inconsistent in his first few games, as he put up good rushing numbers but shaky passing stats. But he came on strong the last three games of the regular season and led the Ducks to a 9–3 regular season record and a victory over the Oklahoma State Cowboys in the Holiday Bowl.
Senior Jeremiah Johnson led Oregon in rushing with 1,201 yards while LeGarrette Blount record 1,002 yards and set a school record with 17 rushing touchdowns. Oregon scored over 500 points for the second straight season, and finished the season being ranked 10th in the AP Poll.
Read more about this topic: 2009 Oregon Ducks Football Team
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—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“The season developed and matured. Another year’s installment of flowers, leaves, nightingales, thrushes, finches, and such ephemeral creatures, took up their positions where only a year ago others had stood in their place when these were nothing more than germs and inorganic particles. Rays from the sunrise drew forth the buds and stretched them into long stalks, lifted up sap in noiseless streams, opened petals, and sucked out scents in invisible jets and breathings.”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)