Numbers Never Lie: Arizona Game Preview
Always be afraid of #Pac12AfterDark. Except for tomorrow.
The wonderful world of Pac-12 play returns to Autzen Stadium as the Ducks welcome the winless and hapless Arizona Wildcats.
I’ll jump right into the preview but please forgive me if you’ve heard some of these things before:
1) Oregon can run the ball, and they can stop the run.
2) Arizona cannot do either of those things.
I know that it isn’t sexy, and I know that I always seem to harp on the ground game with this Duck team, but if you stick with me here, I know that I’ll have even the most devout pass-game-lovers screaming “RUN THE DAMN BALL” by season’s end.
By the numbers, Arizona has been outrushed by an average of 114.4 yards per game in their losses to #15 BYU (good), San Diego State (pretty okay), and Northern Arizona (FCS, and also bad).
While the Ducks have out-gained #22 Fresno State, #10 Ohio State, and Stony Brook by an average of 97.3 ypg.
Addicted to Quack’s Hythloday writes a weekly Duck Film review of every game, and he outlined that there was only number that mattered at all in the Stony Brook game. Outside of garbage time, the Ducks were successful on 71% of their 31 rushing plays. Think about that. By Hythloday’s measure, 65% success is a championship margin—71% is just bonkers.
When you can be that dominant, everything else is gravy. The game is your oyster.
We’ll get to this tomorrow morning with Christian’s Picks, but if you were hoping to see Oregon’s sheer dominance over Arizona reflected via triple digits on the Autzen jumbotron, you’ll be disappointed yet again.
Mario would much rather stomp the Scumcats in statistics like, say, +100 rushing margin and 70%+ run play success.
Another telling statistic for tomorrow is the All Mighty Turnover Margin.
Zona is -2 in turnover margin so far this season, and their quarterbacks have thrown four interceptions total—including at least one in every game.
In yet another example of stark contrast between the best and worst teams in the conference, the Ducks are +7 in turnovers, which ranks them third best in all of FBS.
The first two games—against two great quarterbacks—the turnovers came by way of three forced fumbles against Fresno State, and then a well-earned interception of CJ Stroud that ended up probably being the difference maker in that game.
And just as I predicted last week, Oregon feasted on Stony Brook’s lackluster QB play and picked off Tyquell Fields thricely.
Due to injury and turmoil, we don’t really know who is going to be under center for Arizona, Arizona Desert Swarm reported this week that:
“Fisch said Jordan McCloud and Gunner Cruz have been getting the majority of the first-team reps this week, with Will Plummer “a little dinged up” from the home loss to NAU.”
So it could be any one or two or three of three interception machines? Count me in.
Through all of the success over these past there weeks, the non-conference schedule has been costly in terms of injuries.
We lost KT on Day One. We lost Justin Flowe fourteen total tackles later. And the hits kept coming from there, including to Anthony Brown. And Dru Mathis. And Bradyn Swinson. And Adrian Jackson. And Mase Funa. And and and and and it’s getting really hard to keep track of it all at this point.
But we probably aren’t seeing Flowe until a bowl game.
AB sounds like he just suffered a stinger and is apparently a “full go” for tomorrow—whatever that means.
And KT seems to be pretty damn close to making his return (after his Krypteaux reaches the moon, of course).
Let’s just please walk away from today without anyone new going down, yeah?
Outrush. Force turnovers. Stay healthy.
Do not be surprised if the game plan for tomorrow looks very similar to that of the Stony Brook game. This Oregon team keeps talking about going “1-0” and I think we should start really hearing them when they say that.
Mario Cristobal’s only goal is to do as little as possible, show as little as possible, and suffer as few injuries as possible, while still winning his way.
That isn’t the way Chip did it—and it certainly isn’t always the most blockbuster form of football to watch—but it has proven to be a winning formula for this program since Mario came to town.
I chose to embrace the 1-0 mentality. Because all those 1-0s add up pretty quickly.
37-10.
Go Ducks.