UPDATE: Dixon turns in his glove, but still takes some jabs

*Source - The Oregonian

Coaches question the Oregon quarterback's decision to play baseball this summer

JOHN HUNT The Oregonian

LOS ANGELES -- Oregon quarterback Dennis Dixon will be in Eugene today after his first season as a professional baseball player ended a few days early -- welcome news to Ducks coach Mike Bellotti, who clearly was unhappy with Dixon's multisport aspirations.

"The only upside I can see is that he learned that he really loved football and his teammates," Bellotti said Thursday in Los Angeles, where the Pacific-10 Conference held its annual media day. "And maybe he said, 'Hey, I'm a really good football player -- I might be a better football player than I am a baseball player.' "

Other Pac-10 coaches questioned Dixon's decision to pursue baseball -- he was a fifth-round pick by Atlanta in this year's draft -- although he will be trying to win back the leadership of Oregon's team after losing his starting job and gaining an offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.

"Obviously I wouldn't be real happy about it," Washington State coach Bill Doba said. "Can he hit?"

Dixon hit .188 with no home runs and five stolen bases in 24 games for Atlanta's Gulf Coast League rookie team, although he did draw 14 walks in 64 at-bats and his .342 on-base percentage was second on the team. Then he went 0 for 5 in a brief appearance for the rookie-level team in Danville, Va.

"Well," Doba said. "He should have stayed home."

Atlanta had expected to have Dixon's services until August. Although he's coming back to Oregon early, Dixon still missed valuable practice time, bonding time and learning time. But he did take his new playbook with him to Florida and got a visit from new offensive coordinator Chip Kelly.

Arizona coach Mike Stoops took a deep breath when told of Dixon's decision to pursue baseball before his senior season.

"For me to really accept that, he'd have to be really established," Stoops said. "Summer is one of the most important times of the year to be a leader of the team."

Dixon will face more second-guessing beginning Aug. 6, when the Ducks open fall camp. He still enters camp as the clear No. 1 quarterback, followed by Brady Leaf and Nathan Costa, although Bellotti insists that after the first few days of camp, the depth order will be "performance-driven."

"I expect him to be ready to go. I expect him to be excited about the opportunity to change people's impressions from last year," Bellotti said. "You have a certain backlog of experience and knowledge. I really expect him to be OK. Would it have been better to be here? Absolutely."
Bellotti even joked on the podium for media day, saying that Dixon was spending his time "reading pitches instead of reading defenses."

The other Pac-10 quarterbacks -- the conference has nine who started games last season -- took part in summer workouts, and it wasn't all about passing. Washington State's Alex Brink organized a team picnic. USC's John David Booty visited with NFL star Peyton Manning.
Of course, Manning wasn't in Eugene, and the Bootys and Mannings are family friends. But for Dixon, opportunities have been won and lost as he returns for today's senior preview day.
Bellotti has made it clear that decision-making at quarterback will be a key factor to his team's success this season, and he said he plans to alleviate Dixon of some of that.

"A lot of our offense is quarterback-driven, by what he sees at the line of scrimmage," Bellotti said. "But I think we're going to add some plays that don't require decision plays. We're trying to incorporate a few more of those plays to take some pressure off."

And perhaps being away from football, even it was to play another sport without great success, serves to take pressure off Dixon, too.

"It's hard to tell a kid he can't do something -- you're only young once," Doba said. "Sometimes you have to look at the individual, even though it's a team sport. And usually that works out for the team, also."