Oregon concerned about a healthy Peterson

SAN DIEGO (AP) -Oregon coach Mike Bellotti considers facing a healthy Adrian Peterson a “scary proposition.”

After all, he remembers what happened the last time Peterson toted the ball against the Ducks. The Oklahoma tailback had 24 carries for 183 yards and scored two second-half touchdowns in the Sooners’31-7 victory last season.

But a nagging injury has kept Peterson from duplicating a record-setting freshman season that earned him second place in the 2004 Heisman voting. A sprained right ankle caused him to miss one game and severely limited his production in at least three others.

The punishing, 6-foot-2 sophomore spent Oklahoma’s last four games getting back into shape, and now he’s had more than a month to prepare for tonight’s Holiday Bowl meeting with the sixth-ranked Ducks.

“That’s a scary proposition because as a true freshman he gained 1,925 yards. This year, on one ankle for half the season, he gained over 1,000,” Bellotti said Wednesday at a joint press conference with Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops.

“His coming-out party was against us a year ago.”

In that game, Peterson took over after Kejuan Jones sprained his ankle in the first quarter. He

Photo from adpeterson.com ONE DETERMINED SOONER — Oklahoma University running back Adrian Peterson (28) is a major threat to opposing teams when healthy — a fact not lost on the Oregon Ducks (11-1), the team the Sooners (7-4) face in tonight’s Holiday Bowl. went untouched on a 40-yard TD dash in the third quarter and added a spinning 18-yard score in the fourth quarter.

Two weeks later,

he bolstered his Heisman campaign with a 225yard rushing effort against Texas — his fifth of nine straight 100yard performances to start his career.

Heading into the Holiday Bowl, Peterson has scored two touchdowns in each of Oklahoma’s last four games while averaging 156.5 yards. He ran for 237 yards — including touchdown jaunts of 84 and 71 yards — in the Sooners’ season finale against Oklahoma State.

But even after that game, Peterson said he wasn’t completely healthy.

“He’s probably still not fully healed, but you won’t notice it,” Stoops said Thursday. “He looks great. He’s back. He jumps through the hole. You notice it. He looks really good.”

In their last four games, the Ducks have struggled against the run. Arizona, California, Washington State and Oregon State each had a rusher with at least 128 yards. California’s Marshawn Lynch had the most rushing yards against Oregon this season with 189, including a 52-yard touchdown run to tie the game in the third quarter.

That’s what Bellotti wants to prevent against Peterson, who’s 3 inches taller and 3 pounds heavier than Lynch.

“We can’t let him break the big play,” Bellotti said. “I liken him a lot to Marshawn Lynch. I think he’s a bigger version of Marshawn Lynch. He’s very strong, very fast, capable of breaking tackles, moving the pile and also going the distance.

“The thing that we talked about from a defensive standpoint is you have to get a lot of people around him. You’ll have to stay alive on defense, stay on their feet. We have to gangtackle. Proper pursuit angles are key because he can cut back. With his speed, he can beat one-on-one tackle situations.”

The Big 12 Conference so far this bowl season is 2-1 — six Big 12 teams are in bowl games, including, of course, Texas, who faces Southern Cal in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 4..