LaMichael James Injury: Pac-12 Title Still in Reach for Oregon

As horrific as LaMichael James’ arm injury looked on Thursday night against Cal, the Oregon star appears to have gotten off lucky. He suffered no broken bones, only a dislocated elbow that’ll likely sideline him for a few weeks.

James is a warrior, and the chances are good that he’ll be on the early end of the recovery curve for this injury. That’s good news for a Ducks team hoping to overcome its early loss to LSU and crash the BCS party once again.

Nobody on the Oregon roster (indeed, nobody in the country) is equipped to replace James, but backups De’Anthony Thomas and Kenjon Barner have plenty of talent in their own right.

The offense probably won’t keep putting up 50 points a game, but it should be good enough to win against most of the remaining foes on the Ducks’ schedule.

The notable exception is No. 7 Stanford, which is a safe bet to enter its November 12 meeting with Oregon unbeaten. If James is still sidelined by that point, it will mean the end of the Ducks’ conference title hopes.

However, James sounds like he expects to be back long before then, and even in a conservative estimate, he could return by the previous game against Washington. That gives him a week to get his feet under him again before he has to outduel Andrew Luck’s offense.

Whether Oregon can win in Palo Alto even with a healthy James is far from certain. Even without him, though, the Ducks have enough athletes to get to that game with a perfect conference record.

If Stanford does come out on top in that game, Oregon isn’t completely sunk as far as making a BCS bowl, but its chances won’t be great. The Ducks would be effectively out of the Pac-12 title game, and they’d have to hope that enough other top teams would lose a second game to put them back in the mix for one of the four at-large bids.