In This Corner

PASADENA – How will your college football team fare this season?

Tell me in August if your starting quarterback will be healthy. All season.

Can’t do that?

Then we can’t promise anything. Anybody can lose to anyone. Usually depending on whose No. 1 QB just sprained a toe or broke a finger.

And what you would have ... would look a lot like the 2007 season. With teams surging and falling back. From juggernaut to jury-rigged in the blink of an eye and the snap of a ligament.

Perhaps at no time in the history of college football has the game been so QB-centric.

Oregon could tell you about it.

The Ducks were in line to play for a national championship, and their quarterback, Dennis Dixon, was a Heisman Trophy front-runner.

Then Dixon’s knee blew up, at Arizona, and his team all but gave up.

UCLA throttled the rudderless Ducks, 16-0, on Saturday, and it was no upset, despite UCLA’s struggles and Oregon’s No. 9 ranking.

Without Dixon and his sublime run-throw skills, the Ducks are not even ordinary. A team that was 8-1 is now 8-3 and easily could finish 8-5. “It was sort of painful to watch,” Ducks coach Mike Bellotti said of his backups’ Keystone Kops performances against the Bruins.

Oregon is just the latest would-be power to be brought low by a quarterback injury.

USC’s John David Booty broke a finger and that turned into a loss to Stanford. The preseason national-champs-in-waiting lost again before he came back.

Oklahoma lost Sam Bradford against Texas Tech, and there went the Sooners’ championship dreams.

Cal was going to be No. 1 in the nation until Nate Longshore went out and his replacement gave away a game to Oregon State. The Bears still haven’t recovered.

Michigan was thought to be competent, and then Chad Henne tried to play through a season with a shoulder injury. The Wolverines are 8-4.

UCLA knows about this, too. When Drew Olson crumpled to the turf on Oct. 6, the Bruins were down to their No. 3, and they somehow managed to lose at home to Notre Dame.

College teams just don’t seem to be able to absorb injuries at the quarterback spot. Especially now. The idea of a career backup like Norman Dow coming off the bench to beat a great team (UCLA 14, USC 7, 1966) – or even a mediocre one – seems ludicrous.

“I can tell you all about it,” UCLA coach Karl Dorrell said Saturday. “When you lose the primary position in your offense, and that’s your quarterback, it makes things difficult. It’s a big challenge to keep the productivity at a high level.

“There’s nobody that knows that scenario more than we do.”

UCLA played without No. 1 Olson in five games and without No. 1A Patrick Cowan in seven.

And if you run a quarterback-intensive offense – and nearly everyone (including UCLA) does, these days – the dropoff to No. 2 (or even No. 3) can turn a potential champ into a chump.

“College football is so even that the confidence of your team is very fragile,” UCLA offensive coordinator Jay Norvell said Saturday. “When you have confident playmakers and things come easy to you, your confidence soars. When your execution isn’t as good, your confidence kind of wanes a little bit.

“I think you’ve seen that with a lot of teams this year.”

Replacing a quarterback ... it’s not quite like changing a tire. More like trying to replace an engine.

Teams invest so much time of their limited practice time on their No. 1 QB, it’s no wonder the replacements often flail helplessly.

“As an offensive lineman, I have to know a lot of assignments,” UCLA tackle Brian Abraham said, “but the stuff the quarterbacks have to know is ridiculous. They spend three times as much time on it as we do. It’s not that the other guys are bad, they just don’t get the repetitions.

“It’s definitely a hard position just be thrown in there after someone gets hurt. It’s not easy.”

Indeed.

What do the surviving contenders for the BCS title game have in common?

None of them lost their quarterback.

West Virginia and Pat White, Kansas and Todd Reesing, Missouri and Chase Daniel, Ohio State and Todd Boeckman. Two of those four likely will play for No. 1. If their quarterback stays on his feet, that is.