Cliff Harris Suspended: How Will the Oregon Defense Fare Without Its Star?

Rueben Randle and Russell Shepard, get ready, because the Oregon-LSU season-opening showcase just got a whole lot more interesting.

CB Cliff Harris, the face of Oregon’s defense, has been suspended for the Ducks’ highly anticipated opening weekend tussle with the Tigers after it was reported yesterday that Harris was cited for driving 118 mph with a suspended license last Sunday.

Kyle Busch would be proud.

The topper is that it wasn’t even Harris’ car, but that’s another mess for a different day.

The most important point is that Oregon just lost its best defensive player for the most important game of the season.  

The Ducks were already preparing for a grueling knock out fight with LSU. Now they’ll have to deal with the fact that they’ll enter the battle undermanned.

The loss of Harris, who has been suspended for an indefinite amount of time, is a true blow for a defense that has to replace six starters from a group that wasn’t exactly stellar last year.

Although he showed some inconsistencies as a sophomore, Harris has been hailed as one the premier players in the new Pac-12 conference.

The 5’11’’, 180 pound junior led the conference with six picks in 2010, and he added in a few dazzling returns to help prove his versatility.

Luckily for the Ducks, the LSU passing offense was dreadful in 2010, and I’m going to go out on a limb and say that it won’t be a well-oiled machine right out of the gate in the first game of the season.

Wildly inconsistent senior signal caller Jordan Jefferson will be under center for the Tigers, and you never know what type of effort you’re going to get out of him.

Although he hasn’t shown much of it yet, Jefferson does have talent.

He’ll also have the benefit of Rueben Randle and Russell Shepard, two dangerous receiving threats.

Returning starting safeties John Boyett and Eddie Pleasant are both going to have to step up and play big if Oregon hopes to slow down the LSU passing attack without Harris in the lineup

In the wake of all of this, I’ll pose a question that Oregon fans should be thinking about.

Could Cliff Harris’ troubles open the door for star recruit De’Anthony Thomas to start at cornerback?

Yes, I know Thomas likely has his heart set on getting his hands on the ball as a part of Oregon’s lethal spread offensive attack, but the super athletic freshman has the perfect makeup to be a star corner, and it’s something the team should consider.

Either way, it doesn’t matter who replaces Cliff Harris for the season opener; his absence is sure to be felt.

Chip Kelly has only been the head coach at Oregon for two seasons, yet he’s already had to deal with plenty of problems with his star players.

There was the LeGarrette Blount punch, the LaMichael James domestic violence charge, oh, and let’s not forget about Jeremiah Masoli and all the fun he had.

Kelly is smart. He’s proven that.

We should expect the coach to figure out a way to properly handle this, but it remains to be seen if he can do so by the time the team heads to Cowboys Stadium for their big statement game against their vaunted SEC foe.