JUNCTION CITY -- After the holiday meal, when the adults settled in for long conversations, the Wilcox and Herbert boys would dip out the back door, football in hand.



"You're not going to go sit with the old people," said Josh Wilcox, who played tight end at Oregon from 1993-96. "You're going to go out and play, get dirty."



On a patch of grass next to the Wilcox household east of Junction City, only a few football fields away from the Willamette River, they'd begin a game sparked by a friendship at the University of Oregon in the 1960s.



The teams often split this way: Mitchell and Justin, the eldest of the three Herbert brothers, versus their youngest brother, Patrick, and Josh Wilcox.



And when he was home from one of his stops coaching college football as an up-and-coming defensive assistant, Wilcox's younger sibling, Justin, took over as quarterback.



No one could have known at the time that more than a decade later, Justin and Justin would meet again in a Eugene stadium not far from the banks of the Willamette -- this time as opponents.





Herbert is now Oregon's star sophomore quarterback, who owns the country's 13th-highest efficiency rating. Saturday night in Autzen Stadium, he and the Oregon Ducks will face a Cal team off to a promising start under Wilcox, the first-year head coach whom family members say Herbert has grown up to resemble in so many ways, from his name to his temperament.

"My Justin really looks up to Justin Wilcox," said Mark Herbert, Justin Herbert's father. "He's always just watched from afar and we've thought, 'What a great role model.'"

Oregon quarterback Justin Herbert has college football's 13th-highest efficiency rating through UO's 3-1 start.

WHAT'S IN A NAME

If you know football in the Willamette Valley, you know the Wilcox name.



Dave Wilcox played at Oregon before beginning a Hall of Fame career in the NFL with the San Francisco 49ers from 1964-74. The Wilcox brothers grew up as UO ballboys before they, too, took the field at Autzen as Ducks players. Justin was a Junction City High School star who stayed home to play quarterback and defensive back at Oregon from 1996-1999 before beginning his coaching career.



Given his family's long history with Oregon, Justin Wilcox's ties to his alma mater will draw interest all week in the run-up to Saturday's 7:30 p.m. kickoff.



But his connection to Herbert goes deep, too.



This story began more than 50 years ago, when Dave Wilcox arrived at Oregon in 1962 as a transfer from Boise Junior College. He had no family in the area, having grown up near the Idaho border outside of Vale, but neither did a few other UO teammates he became close with. They formed a pack, spending their holidays and free time together.



One of those teammates was Rich Schwab, Herbert's maternal grandfather.



Schwab and Wilcox were in each other's weddings. Their families are intertwined, closer than some related through blood.



"You can't talk about a better family or kids than that family," Josh Wilcox said. "When I talk to my dad on Sundays it's Justin Wilcox first, Justin Herbert second, to see who did what. And that's freaking awesome."



Mark Herbert grew up in Eugene but once he married Schwab's daughter, Holly, most Thanksgivings, Christmases and Easters were spent at the Wilcox home. Eventually, his family came, too. It's just what was done. When Justin got a new job in coaching -- Cal, Boise State, Tennessee, Washington, USC -- Mitchell, Justin and Patrick Herbert often got a new T-shirt or sweatshirt bearing the school logo.



To the Herbert boys, Justin and Josh's mother is not called by her given name, Merle, but by the nickname "Aunt Buck."



"They just love my boys, and of course my boys just love them," she said. "It's a great family. A great bond."



It was at these gatherings that people began to notice the uncanny similarities between the Justins, despite their 21-year age gap.



Each was whip-smart, with athleticism that made people take notice and a tall, lanky build they'd later pack with muscle. When Herbert returned from a national softball-throwing contest on the East Coast as a kid, Josh Wilcox made the youngster sign a softball for him. He still has it, with Herbert's looping cursive signature perhaps his first-ever autograph.



Away from the games, the Justins were each reserved, analytical personalities. Each is a "strong, silent type," Mark Herbert said, "who knew what they wanted and where they were going."



"Quiet, but deadly," Merle Wilcox said.



"They're perfectionists, and want to win," said Josh Wilcox of the comparison between his actual brother and Herbert, his pseudo-little brother. "Probably won't give you every quote you want, but everyone in the locker room will want to follow them."



And those are the kind of qualities Herbert's parents had in mind when they needed a name for their second son.



Justin Wilcox, Mark Herbert said, "had a lot to do" with why they chose Justin.



"He kind of represented a lot of what you want your kids to be, or as a young man," Mark Herbert said. "He was polite and spoke when spoken to and not much else, really similar to Dave. There was a quiet confidence and it wasn't a braggadocious.



"We just really liked his personality and what he represented and the name, certainly. Gosh, if our kids could grow up and do the things that Justin did, what a great life it would be."



Justin it was.

Justin Wilcox is 3-1 in his first season as coach of the California Golden Bears. A UO grad, Wilcox's staff includes several other connections to Oregon, including offensive line coach Steve Greatwood and defensive line coach Jerry Azzinaro, both former Ducks assistants.

'LIKE BROTHERS AGAINST BROTHERS'

Merle Wilcox estimates she'll spend Saturday's game either pacing in an Autzen Stadium suite or in her car in the parking lot.



Anxiety didn't get to her like this when Josh and Justin were playing. But this is Justin's first job as a head coach, and the Bears (3-1, 0-1 Pac-12) are off to a surprising start based on preseason expectations. And now he's about to face Herbert and UO (3-1, 0-1).



"It'd be like brothers playing against brothers," she said.



Hearing that, Dave Wilcox just laughed.



"I love it," he said.



He's done this drill before. As a 49ers linebacker, he relished his matchups against Bob Berry, his former Ducks teammate.



This was the same Berry who'd go to dinner with Wilcox the night before kickoff. The same Berry who introduced Dave to Merle on a blind date in Santa Cruz.



"We sent blitzes and we tried to kill him and he tried to throw passes on us," Dave Wilcox said. "I understand what it is. I want Justin Herbert to do great, except next week. Maybe the Cal Bears get one more point than the other guys."



As they reminisced, Merle and Dave Wilcox sat in their living room in front of an east-facing window. It looks over the same field where their sons, and the Herbert boys, used to throw the ball around.



No one, of course, would have envisioned then that those competitions would be the prelude to Saturday.



"I don't think there was any thought process at all, none, that he would ever be a college quarterback," Mark Herbert said of his middle son. "It was just, 'Hey we're out here playing with the Wilcoxes. This is awesome.'"



-- Andrew Greif

agreif@oregonian.com

@andrewgreif