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PULLMAN, Washington (Ticker) -- Onterrio Smith ran all over Washington State's dreams of an undefeated season. Smith ran for a school-record 285 yards and three touchdowns and No. 13 Oregon made a frantic goal-line stand in the final seconds to hold on for a 24-17 over No. 15 Washington State that scrambled the top of the Pac-10 Conference. "I think we are mad, upset," Washington State coach Mike Price said. "We are mad at ourselves." Smith, a sophomore, carried 26 times, including touchdown runs of eight, 41 and 73 yards. The last one was a back-breaker, giving the Ducks a 24-10 lead with 5:39 to play. But Jason Gesser rallied the Cougars. Just 74 seconds later, he threw a 15-yard TD pass to Jerome Riley that halved the deficit. The Cougars finally stopped Smith and forced a punt, getting back the ball at their 14 with no timeouts and just over a minute to go. Gesser had a pair of completions to Nakoa McElrath and two to Mike Bush, moving WSU to the Oregon 25 with 20 seconds to play. A 17-yarder to McElrath and a spike gave the Cougars three plays from the 8 with 11 seconds left. But Gesser threw incomplete, linebacker David Moretti nearly picked off a pass and linebacker Wesly Mallard broke up a toss for McElrath. "I think he had a chance to have it," Price said. "It looked like he got bumped before the ball came down. I thought he had it in his hands. It comes down to one play and it shouldn't have come down to one play." Both teams are 7-1 overall and 4-1 in the Pac-10, which remains wide open with five teams with one loss. Stanford, UCLA and Washington also are jockeying for the conference title and the automatic BCS berth. The Ducks had their own undefeated season wrecked by a 49-42 loss to Stanford last week. "Every team will get knocked down once in a while, but it's how you get back up and on your feet again that matters," Oregon coach Mike Bellotti said. Oregon did an outstanding job with its feet, rushing for a school-record 446 yards. That was not a good sign for the Cougars, who next face UCLA's DeShaun Foster. "I was disappointed that our defense gave up that many yards," Price said. "I did not think that would ever happen. DeShaun Foster is probably going to be licking his chops when he sees this tape." "That was a ridiculous amount of yards and it's not going to get any easier next week with DeShaun Foster," Cougars safety Billy Newman said. Smith's tremendous game took the pressure off quarterback Joey Harrington, who completed 14-of-26 passes for 119 yards. Senior running back Maurice Morris had 138 yards on 19 carries. "That was a great effort," Bellotti said. "We should have turned all those yards into more points, but I'm really proud of our guys." Gesser was 17-of-37 for 249 yards and one TD. McElrath caught seven passes for 87 yards and Bush added four for 95. The turnover-free game had a scoreless first quarter before a 34-yard field goal by Drew Dunning gave WSU the lead with 10:44 left in the second quarter. But Smith capped an 80-yard march with an eight-yard TD run at the 7:23 mark and finished the opening drive of the second half with a 41-yard scoring jaunt, making it 14-3. "Everybody did their part to make the running game successful," Bellotti said. After Oregon's Jared Siegel kicked a 22-yard field goal early in the fourth quarter, Gesser directed a 72-yard drive that ended with a one-yard TD run by Dave Minnich, making it 17-10 with 11:28 remaining. Oregon has won the last four meetings to take a 37-35-7 lead in the all-time series.
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