Wildcats ambushed on first play

The Associated Press Arizona Daily Wildcat Oregon quarterback Akili Smith outruns Arizona defender Mike Szlauko (44) during both teams' Pac-10 opener last night in Eugene, Ore.

And for the most part, the house busted.

Tomey had not indicated that both sophomore Keith Smith and senior Brady Batten would see time at quarterback and said his decision was spur of the moment.

"Playing both Keith and Brady was not designed," Tomey said. "Keith looked nervous or flustered out there so we put Brady in."

Smith and Batten received equal playing time, although neither quarterback was overly effective.

Each quarterback threw for just over 100 yards while Batten added a late touchdown pass to Brad Brennan to pad his statistics for the game.

Smith said he was surprised at the shuffling of himself and Batten.

"I don't know," said Smith when asked if the shuffling affected his rhythm.

Oregon head coach Mike Bellotti was equal to the task as he exchanged juniors Jason Maas and Akili Smith throughout the game. The Ducks' offense didn't look anymore polished than Arizona's.

"Unless someone dominates the play out there," Bellotti said, "we will continue to go with rotating quarterbacks."

Arizona's offense showed signs of potential under both signal callers, but mistakes killed several key drives.

In addition to Smith's fumble on Arizona's initial possession, the Wildcats were guilty of many dropped passes late in the second half during drives near the Oregon end zone. Then when Smith did complete a pass over the middle for good yardage to tight end Mike Lucky, it was called back because of a holding penalty.

"Mistakes really hurt us," Smith said.

As it appears now, Arizona has somewhat of a quarterback controversy but Smith was quick to applaud the effort of his teammate.

"Brady played well," Smith said, "We're going to have to learn to work with this."