Unsung Heroes and Emergency Starters

This week's most valuable Duck might be Michelle Asper, wife of starting offensive guard Mark Asper, nine months pregnant and ready to have the couple's second little girl any day. She's given Mark the go-ahead to play football in Saturday's Civil War, regardless of when Oregon's newest duckling decides to make her debut. Now that's a team-first mentality. Best wishes to the Asper family as they await this blessed arrival.

On the field, the Ducks need a strong effort by the offense and defense in this game, because the kicking game has sprung a leak. Field goal kicker Rob Beard has missed on his last three tries, and punter Jackson Rice, who was lights-out deadly accurate in the first ten games, missed the Arizona game. He is still battling an illness and hasn't been able to practice. True freshman Alejandro Maldonado has been pressed into duty as the punter. Maldonado had one punt for 30 yards in the Arizona game, with another sailing over his head for a safety. Maldonado is listed at 5-10 but doesn't look that tall. At 6-3, the athletic Rice was a much easier target, and a far more experienced and accomplished punter, with a real throwback knack for the coffin corner.

With Rice out walk-on Dustin Haines has had to take over as the holder on place kicks, Rice himself having taken over from the injured Nate Costa. So now the Ducks are down to their second punter, their third holder, and the field goal kicker is in an apparent slump.

In the first 11 wins, the kicking game wasn't a decisive factor. But in a rivalry game in bad weather, what's been a strength all season is now another reason to panic. Oregon fans, notoriously hyper-vigilant by nature, never need additional reasons to panic. We have to hope the Ducks will be dominant enough in other areas to avoid the nightmare Brotzman scenario, an entire season ruined by two errant kicks.