Gone Fisching
Even Churchill would be tested by Arizona's aerial assault.
Last week, I told you the Ducks were probably going to rush for over 300 yards. 351 yards later, the Ducks reinforced that they’re a run-first team that can push this conference around better than my dog pushes me off the side of the bed.
The Human Broken Tackle, Bucky Irving, leads the conference in yards per carry at 7.5 and was heartbreakingly shy of a deserved 100 yards with a modest 97 against Stanford.
And not to be outdone on the ground, Bo Nix (the Pac-12 co-leader in rushing touchdowns), scampered for 141 and two scores on just 6 carries. His stat line certainly wasn’t hurt by the fact that one of those carries was an 80 yard home run/dagger.
Big surprise, we watched Bo Nix go off once again.
The man gained over 300 yards of total offense and scored four total touchdowns, so you could imagine my surprise when I heard a couple of Section 19 ding dongs from a few rows back sending boos Nix’s way in the middle of the second quarter after a routine incomplete pass.
And as Oregon’s resident sunshine-pumper, I wanted to tell these boo-birds that we were winning.
I wanted to ask them to describe the exact mistake they thought Bo Nix had made—certainly I don’t think he did anything boo-worthy all night. But really I just wanted to tell these big dumb idiots just how big and dumb they were.
And then I realized something: They came there to do that.
They made their “minds” up way back in August. They didn’t buy tickets to a Duck game, they bought tickets to boo Bo Nix.
Got dressed that morning, put on their favorite boots, and braved the late night kickoff with a dream in their hearts and boo in their throats—just dying to be set free.
So I looked over to my cousin Andy—who was equally amazed at the idiocy—and all I could do was smile.
As a big dumb idiot myself, I can’t help but beam with pride when another big dumb idiot gets to live out their dreams. Good for those guys.
Oh, and it turns out I didn’t have to say anything at all, because Bo had his own message for the haters when he rolled out and connected with Troy “Twinkle Toes” Franklin for a Bralon Addison-esqe touchdown just a few minutes later.
I’ll say it again, Nix is the engine that moves our offense. Troy Franklin is going to do something(s) amazing every week. Bucky is going to bounce off tacklers, and Noah Whittington is going to quietly grab 66 yards of his own.
Add in a veteran, high-performing offensive line, and roll it all into Dillingham’s system and that is why the Duckies are now the 10th-ranked rushing offense in the whole country, averaging 228.8 yards per game, and also why they’re the 13th-ranked offense in the nation with 499 total per game.
And oh man, are we ever going to run on these guys tomorrow.
Arizona is 11th in the Pac in rush defense, so they’ve been having a tough time stopping anybody. Cal’s Jaydn Ott ran for 274 all on his own, and FCS North Dakota State racked up 283 on the Scumcats.
I don’t think it’s too greedy of me to think that Bucky might finally find that 100 yard game here. Somebody else just might, too.
Switching back and forth to the defensive side of the ball, the Ducks biggest challenge is going to be Jayden de Laura and his stable of receivers.
The dude threw six touchdowns last week against Colorado.
Now, de Laura has never beat the Ducks—and both of his Wazzu teams were probably better than this Arizona team, who has shown a lot of promise and seems to have found their guy with Head Coach Jedd Fisch—but the talented young receiving corps could make this game spooky for Oregon’s embattled secondary.
It’s no secret that we statistically have the worst pass defense in the Pac-12, but Christian Gonzalez has been playing better and better every week, and PFF even slotted him in at 10th overall in their latest NFL Mock Draft, so he’ll surely be marking Arizona’s top receiver Jacob Cowing—who also happens to be the conference’s top receiver.
But that only covers one outside weapon, and unfortunately U of A also has the Pac’s second leading WR, Dorian Singer. And then they ALSO have the true freshman Never-Duck, Tetairoa McMillan who is an absolute weapon and will probably score on us, if not simply as a cosmic punishment for all the schadenfreude we’ve all been enjoying watching Miami fans turn on Mario by week four.
So—same as last week—to make up for our deficiencies in the secondary, Dorlus and DJ are going to have to keep up the pressure and punch de Laura in the mouth* early and often. We can’t let him cook like he did last week.
*#DraymondToPortland
That’s pretty much it as I see it.
We’ll have to weather the storm that Zona is going to give us through the air, and mostly just focus on controlling the game with our overwhelmingly better ground attack.
Also, despite what the last week’s refs would like you to think, the Ducks DO NOT commit a penalty on every play. Jerry and Jorgy were on postgame last week and I was shocked at just how much they were placing in all the dirty laundry we saw against ‘Ferd.
Would I like to see that flag number go down? Heck yeah.
Do I imagine that there’s much more we can do ourselves (besides going to the Big Ten)? No, not really.
Just go out there and win so big that they can’t take it away from you.
It’s the Ducks in the desert, but I think we win a shootout.
50-33.
Go Ducks.