Ducks must sprint off the starting line.

Byline: Bob Clark The Register-Guard

UO FOOTBALL

OREGON VS. STANFORD 12:30 p.m. Saturday at Autzen Stadium. TV: ABC. Radio: KUGN-AM (590). Web updates: www.registerguard.com.

Can there be a better way to begin a season?

It was the opening kickoff of 1997 for Oregon, and Saladin McCullough fielded the football at his 7-yard line. Seemingly every Arizona player on kickoff coverage had a shot at McCullough, but he kept avoiding Wildcats as the roar of the crowd in Autzen Stadium built.

Finally, McCullough was at midfield, leaving the last potential tacklers behind. The noise was deafening as McCullough reached the end zone on that Thursday evening, with a national television audience and 38,035 in Autzen Stadium watching.

Yes, quite an opening it was to that season nine years ago as the Ducks went on to a 16-9 victory over Arizona, the last time Oregon opened a schedule against a Pac-10 opponent.

It happens again Saturday, when the 21st-ranked Ducks play host to Stanford at 12:30 p.m., with this time a regional telecast by ABC.

`All that hypes up how big of a game it is and what's at stake,' Oregon tight end Dante Rosario said. `The TV aspect excites people even more.'

The tenor of Oregon's past three weeks seems to have been to be ready right away, since it is not only the first game but a Pac-10 game to open up this 2006 season.

`It definitely intensifies things more,' UO linebacker Brent Haberly said. `Every game counts, but starting with a Pac-10 game, it really counts.'

Rare is the opening game against a conference opponent. In the Pac-10 era, which began with the 1978 season, Oregon has kicked off against another conference team only six times.

Not that the Ducks are alone in that. The last time there was a Pac-10 game on opening weekend was 2000, when Stanford and Washington State met to begin that season. Though Washington had a run where it opened seven of eight seasons from 1991 through '98 against a Pac-10 opponent, it's been relatively rare for the rest of the league.

Arizona's last season opener against a Pac-10 team was the '97 encounter with the Ducks, the same year UCLA and Washington State decided the league's Rose Bowl representative in their opening game against each other. USC and Oregon State haven't opened against a Pac-10 foe since 1994 - it wasn't each other then - and California last did it in 1993.

It took a slight manipulation of this year's schedule to bring about the Ducks and Cardinal getting a three-week jump on everybody else with a conference game.

Oregon and Stanford were originally slated to meet Oct. 28. Neither school was scheduled to play anybody this weekend, meaning for the Ducks were facing the prospect of playing on 12 consecutive Saturdays, a season without a bye, and playing their opening game at Fresno State, a difficult prospect.

There was an initial discussion of the Ducks and UCLA playing on the opening Saturday, but the Bruins then moved a game against Utah to be their opener, so that was out. With television networks always interested in a pairing of league opponents, the Pac-10 then offered Stanford and Oregon a fairly solid guarantee that if they would play on the opening weekend, the game would be televised. The schools agreed, and ABC opted to pick up the telecast.

Beyond that added revenue, UO coach Mike Bellotti said his primary impetus to go along with a league game for the opener was getting the bye in the schedule

`We would have had a bye (after eight games) which would have been about perfect,' Bellotti said.

Except then Utah State, scheduled to play the Ducks on Sept. 23, backed out. In the scramble to find an opponent, Oregon was able to secure Portland State, but only on the Oct. 28 date freed up by Stanford's agreement to be in Autzen this Saturday. That leaves the Ducks with a bye Sept. 23 after three games, still probably not a bad spot considering it comes after a home game against Oklahoma, and before Oregon resumes its Pac-10 schedule with a game at Arizona State on Sept. 30.

Though current schedules for future seasons don't have the Ducks again opening against a league opponent, Bellotti said he would do it if it helped his team in terms of when a bye fell during what will now be 12-game seasons. Especially if it meant opening with a league game at Autzen Stadium.

`I was excited to get a home game' as this opener, Bellotti said. `I'm not sure if I would have been as excited to get a road game' against a Pac-10 opponent for an opener.

Bellotti as Oregon's head coach has only the one time in 1997 opened with a Pac-10 game. He did, however, make his debut as the Oregon offensive coordinator in a conference game, when the Ducks began their 1989 schedule by playing California at Autzen Stadium.

`At the time I didn't really think much of it,' Bellotti said. `It was my first game (at Oregon), period. It didn't matter who we played so much as I was worried about us.

`For the most part, that's the case (in openers). Coaches and players in a first game are worried more about who we are, and what we're doing than our opponent. You learn a lot of things in the first game.'

In that initial game of 1989, which served as the introduction of Bellotti's offense, the Ducks showed indications of what would be a very good offensive team, compiling 459 yards in a 35-19 win over the Golden Bears. That victory also started Oregon toward a 7-4 record and the first bowl berth for the Ducks in 26 seasons.

`We moved the ball pretty well and people were surprised because (Oregon) had struggled at the end of the season the year before,' Bellotti said. `But we had a healthy team and a veteran team.'

Two years later, the Ducks also started with a league game, and defeated Washington State, 40-14, despite freshman quarterback Danny O'Neil's making his debut. After O'Neil was injured later that month, triggering a spate of quarterback injuries, the Ducks tumbled to a 3-8 finish.

So opening games aren't always a harbinger of what's to come.

Still, this group of Ducks hasn't forgotten that one of the three opening game losses by Oregon in its past 22 seasons, a home defeat two years ago to Indiana, seemed to portend what would end up a 5-6 season.

`We've talked about that a couple times, that we can't let somebody come in here and sneak up on us,' Haberly said. `We can't take anybody lightly. We've got to be ready.'

Even more so, with a league opponent. Lose this, and the Ducks are last in the league for a while.

`I hope there's a sense of urgency to prepare that might not have been there if we'd played a non-league game against a team we didn't have a history with,' Bellotti said. `Obviously, I feel it is important. I want them to understand it's important not just for getting off on the right foot in the first game, but because it's a league game and we'll carry that success or failure throughout the season.'

OPENERS THAT COUNT

Since the Pac-10 expanded in 1978, Oregon has opened its season with a league game six times, winning the last four of those games.

Year Opponent Result 1980 Stanford Lost, 35-25 1982 Arizona State Lost, 34-3 1985 at Washington State Won, 42-39 1989 California Won, 35-19 1991 Washington State Won, 40-14 1997 Arizona Won, 16-9

Source: UO media guide