Posted: Thursday, November 23, 2006 12:00 am
Injuries force Oregon into using young players on the corners
By Kevin Hampton
Corvallis Gazette-Times
EUGENE - On paper, the situation was looking grim for the University of Oregon secondary.
Terrell Ward had worked his way into a starting spot at cornerback in the offseason, but an injury ended his year.
Two games into the season, the Ducks lost Jackie Bates.
A shuffle of the lineup was necessary and in stepped redshirt freshmen Walter Thurmond and Jairus Byrd at cornerback.
It has been a growing process for the pair, but they have helped the Ducks develop into one of the stronger defensive backfields in the Pacific-10 Conference. The Ducks have played well enough to rank third in the NCAA in pass defense going into Friday's Civil War game at Oregon State, giving up 147.7 yards a game through the air.
Byrd has four interceptions and Thurmond is fourth on the team with 57 total tackles.
"We're just basically learning every game, just growing as a unit," Byrd said. "We're trying to learn from our mistakes and basically we want to get better each and every week, improve our performance the week before and as long as we're doing that, we can't complain."
Byrd had to learn a new position when he was moved from rover to the corner opposite Thurmond. He said he was waiting for the chance to get on the field and has been working to make the most of his playing time.
The adjustment took some time.
"It's been different just as far as your eyes and your keys and just the breaks that you have to make," he said. "At (rover), you can read everything and at corner it's just high-octane, you're going all the time and you've got to cover everybody."
Free safety J.D. Nelson and rover Patrick Chung round out the secondary. Nelson has taken on a leadership role as the lone senior and has helped bring the corners and Chung, a sophomore, along.
"He leads by example and it's just like another coach," Byrd said. "Having him out there is like a calming device for everybody else, just to know what they need to do and look to him for guidance."
Oregon linebacker Blair Phillips said the team knew that Byrd and Thurmond had the potential to be good players and they have lived up to it on the field this season.
Phillips pointed to the corners' effort against Southern California as an indication of how far they've come and how good they can be. They held the highly-touted USC receivers in check for most of the game and made big one-on-one tackles on Trojans ball carriers.
"They've come up big," Phillips said. "The way they've come in this year as freshmen and not many people knowing about how well they were going to play, we had confidence in them and they showed up and backed our confidence up and have just been showing people all year."
Thurmond has continued to tackle well from his corner spot and had seven stops against Arizona last week.
"Tackling is probably one of the hardest things to do on defense and the only way you're going to win games is if you can tackle, and we practice tackling every day in practice and you've just got to be able to get good at it," Thurmond said. "I just try to be the best tackler I can be because I know if something does leak out, I have to step up and make the tackle. I don't want to be that person to go out there and miss a tackle and give up a big touchdown."
Thurmond said the secondary takes pride in their national ranking and they do not want to give up any pass completions, much less for touchdowns.
He said the corners have been taught to try to make plays and not let the receiver dictate the game. He said the biggest thing he had to learn was how to get over giving up a big play.
"I know it can be hard for a young player to go out there and get beat for a touchdown," he said. "But the team depends on you, so you just have to shake that play off and be ready for the next play and come back and make a play to help your team out."
It won't be easy for the corners Friday afternoon at Reser Stadium. The Beavers have several good receivers, including a big threat in Sammie Stroughter.
Oregon State quarterback Matt Moore will know Byrd and Thurmond are young and will try to go after them.
It is something the corners have dealt with every game.
"We look at it in the secondary as we're getting challenged every week just because we have freshman corners," Thurmond said. "We know that teams are going to try to pass on us, so we have to play to the best of our abilities each week against each team we go against."