All of college football understood how Quinton Moore felt when he took on Oregon quarterback Jeremiah Masoli in the Holiday Bowl last season. Bowled over.

When Masoli bulldozed Moore during a 41-yard touchdown run in the Ducks’ 42–31 victory over the Cowboys, it was the OSU safety who bore the physical brunt of the blow. But everybody else watching the game suddenly knew exactly what Moore had learned — Masoli is a powerful dual-threat quarterback who, at the helm of Oregon coach Chip Kelly’s inventive spread-option attack, just might be a darkhorse Heisman Trophy candidate for the 2009 season. The same player who was fifth string on the Oregon depth chart heading into preseason camp a year ago is being mentioned for one of the most prestigious awards in sports.

Yes, 2007 winner Tim Tebow of Florida and 2008 winner Sam Bradford of Oklahoma are around this fall and will dominate the early Heisman discussion. But after Masoli accounted for 23 touchdowns in two-thirds of a season last year, he could put up numbers in 2009 that won’t be easy to ignore.

“It’s an honor just to be mentioned in the same sentence with guys like that,” says Masoli, a soft-spoken San Franciscan of Polynesian descent. “It would be nice, but it’s not on my mind right now. I’m just thinking about training, and seeing that blue field.”

That would be the blue field of Boise State’s Bronco Stadium. Even as Oregon was preparing for spring practices in April, Masoli was already thinking about the “Smurf Turf,” on which the Ducks will open the season in a nationally televised Thursday night game. It could be the perfect venue for Masoli to kick off a Heisman run, while also helping the Ducks avenge the loss that derailed their 2008 season.

Oregon was 3–0 prior to playing the Broncos last fall. Justin Roper began the year at quarterback but was hurt in the Ducks’ third win, at Purdue. Instead of turning to Masoli, the coaches went with true freshman Chris Harper to beat the Boilermakers in overtime. Masoli then won the right to start against the Broncos, but he was removed from the game in the first quarter after sustaining a concussion on a helmet-to-chin hit.

Down to Harper and another true freshman quarterback, the Ducks went on to lose, 37–32.

“When I didn’t get into the Purdue game, it kind of humbled me,” says Masoli, who left junior college after only one season, keeping him off the national recruiting radar. “But it was good for me, because it made me hungry. Against Boise, getting hurt intensified my hunger 100 percent.”

The Pac-10 Conference suffered the wrath of Masoli’s frustrations. Aside from an encounter with the NFL-ready USC defense and a game played in monsoon conditions at California, Masoli and the Ducks responded to the Boise State loss in dominant fashion. He finished as Oregon’s third-leading rusher, with 718 yards and 10 touchdowns, and recovered from an inconsistent start by completing 56.9 percent of his passes for 1,744 yards and 13 touchdowns.

Few would have thought that Kelly and the Oregon offense would overcome the loss of 2007 starter Dennis Dixon so well. But the Ducks didn’t miss Dixon by the end of last season, as Masoli maturely directed a last-minute comeback against Stanford, led the Ducks to 45 first-half points against Arizona by opening the game with a 66-yard touchdown run, and then helped Oregon put up a Civil War-record 65 points to crush Oregon State’s Rose Bowl hopes in the regular-season finale.

The only difference between Masoli and Dixon is style: Masoli has the compact build of a rugby player, rather than the graceful gait of the much taller Dixon. 

“I’m not the fastest guy, so I won’t be breaking away for many 80-yard runs,” says Masoli, 5'11" and 215 pounds. “I got lucky in the Arizona game. But running over somebody is an indescribable feeling. You just dominated that person you were going against, and that’s what you set out to do: Just dominate the other team.”

Because of a lingering wrist injury suffered in junior college, Masoli didn’t do a lot of weightlifting last fall, which he rectified this offseason. He says he feels “faster and lighter on my feet,” having improved his bench press and squat considerably.

The injury also limited Masoli’s ability to throw with his receivers when he arrived at Oregon last summer. It took most of last season for him to get comfortable in the passing game, but now Masoli feels “200 percent different from when I first arrived here.”

“Going to war with your boys every Saturday or Friday, it takes a lot of bonding and cohesiveness, a lot of trust,” Masoli says. “I feel like we’ve definitely developed that.”

Competition is king for Kelly, so he hasn’t yet anointed Masoli the starter against Boise State to open this season. Roper is back to challenge for the job, as is Nate Costa, a junior who was the projected starter in fall camp last year before suffering his third major knee injury.

“They’re all going to get a shot,” Kelly says. “But I think Jeremiah is going to make it very difficult to be unseated.”

Masoli could help his case by improving his completion percentage. Kelly sets a goal of 70 percent for his quarterbacks, something even Dixon wasn’t quite able to attain at Oregon. With Masoli now having digested the playbook and experienced hundreds of reps with his receivers this offseason, the hope is he can get to that level. “We recruited him because he threw the ball so well,” Kelly says. “The fact he became such a good runner was like an added bonus. I know what he can and can’t throw. He’s got as strong an arm and as quick a release as anybody we’ve had here.”

Masoli is expecting improvement from himself, too. “At the end of the season, me and the receivers finally got on the same page and knew how each other worked,” Masoli says. “(We) are doing that stuff right now. We started it in January, not Game 2 or Game 3. Last summer was a whirlwind, but now I know my expectations and what I want to do with the guys on the field.”

Kelly praises Masoli as an intelligent player who improved as last season progressed. Even in the miserable conditions at California, when Masoli struggled through a 7-of-21 performance with two interceptions in a 26–16 loss, Kelly said he found things to like about his quarterback’s play. Masoli’s 97 rushing yards, for one.

The skill that has eluded Masoli is sliding, that tried and true method by which quarterbacks protect themselves. Oklahoma State’s Moore wasn’t the only defender who might have expected Masoli to slide, when instead he lowered his head and lowered the boom.

“Coach Kelly just tells me to be smart,” Masoli says. “Pick and choose my battles. And I think I do.”

Kelly doesn’t see Masoli’s physical nature as a major risk. “He does a great job of getting out of bounds,” Kelly says. “He doesn’t take as many hits as people think. He’s pretty smart from that standpoint.

“He’s not Tim Tebow. He’s not that body type. We don’t have anything designed for him to run 25 times a game. He needs to be a viable option, and when he does run it has to make defenses pay. But you also can’t afford to lose those guys.”

Luckily for Kelly and the Ducks, they have a quarterback in Masoli who inflicts much more pain than he receives at the end of his runs. Just ask Oklahoma State.

This feature appears in the 2009 Athlon Sports Pac-10 Magazine. Click here to purchase your copy.

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