Posted by Chip Patterson

College football's most potent offense just got a little thinner at the quarterback position, with the announcement that Oregon backup quarterback Nate Costa will miss the rest of the season due to injury.  On Tuesday the university confirmed that the knee injury, Costa's third in his five-year college career, will force the quarterback to miss the rest of the season and effectively end his career at Oregon.  Costa is scheduled to undergo surgery sometime in the next two weeks.

While Costa has provided little production outside of holding for placekicks and leading the offense in mop-up time, he has been one of the faces of the Ducks in the Chip Kelly era.  Rob Mosely, of the Eugene Register-Guard, describes Costa as "invaluable as one of the team's leaders" over the last two seasons.  For an undefeated squad with National Championship Game hopes, that kind of leadership can come is an advantage in times of adversity.  Even more difficult for the Ducks, freshman quarterback Bryan Bennett is now at risk of burning his redshirt with a move to the second-string.  The onus now lies on the offensive line to keep starting quarterback Darron Thomas healthy, at least through four more games.

Posted by Jerry Hinnen

The way Oregon has a cut a swath of destruction through the Pac-10 thus far this season as athletic dual-threat quarterback Darron Thomas has operated Chip Kelly 's lethal spread-option offense to perfection, you might think the Ducks were invulnerable. But you don't have to go any further back than 2007 remember another season when an apparently-invulnerable Oregon was cutting a swath of destruction through the Pac-10 as athletic dual-threat quarterback Dennis Dixon was operating Chip Kelly's lethal spread-option offense to perfection, and that season ended with an unfortunate ACL injury to Dixon derailing what could have been a national championship campaign.

Until last Saturday, the Ducks appeared impervious to even that nightmare scenario, as senior backup Nate Costa , with several years of experience in Kelly's system under his belt, appeared to be a 100 percent sound backup plan in the event of Thomas's departure. (Costa deputized against Washington State earlier this year and hit a brisk 13-of-15 while rushing for 84 yards.) But that was before Costa "appeared to suffer a serious injury to his right knee" while trying to salvage a botched field goal hold against Washington this past weekend.

A final evaluation of Costa's status is still forthcoming , but Kelly seemed resigned to not having the senior available for this week's tricky visit to Cal , at the minimum. That leaves Kelly with two less-than-appetizing options if he has to turn to someone other than Thomas: true freshman Bryan Bennett , who earned the No. 3 job in the offseason but is a true freshman and who Kelly wants to redshirt, or redshirt sophomore Daryle Hawkins , who has spent the season working at running back and receiver.

As long as Thomas stays healthy, it won't matter who the backup is. But before Costa's injury, it had become nearly impossible to lay out a blueprint for a Ducks loss; now, an early knock to Thomas that could thrust Bennett or Hawkins into the fray on the road against an athletic, disruptive Bears defense could turn things awfully dicey for the Ducks in a big hurry. Even if Thomas remains intact, Kelly may feel forced to alter his play-calling to prevent him from taking as many hits; against the Bears, on the road, it's conceivable could this lead to the first real offensive hiccups of the season for the Duck offense.

At least the Ducks won't be alone in wondering what might happen if their starter goes down; Arizona will be without rejuvenated backup Matt Scott for their trip to USC as he recovers from a wrist injury. Scott led the Wildcats to a pair of wins in starter Nick Foles 's recent injury absence and might have spelled Foles Saturday against Stanford if healthy. Instead, the 'Cats will go with junior Bryson Beirne (and his five career pass attempts) in the event Foles is forced ot the bench.