Maryland Is Our New Wazzu

Nothing like a 21-point win to keep us humble.

I said it right there in the title. I think Maryland is our new Wazzu.

The Terrapins’ version of the air raid wasn’t in full Mike Leach mode, but their quick throws, slip screens, and the most annoyingly effective 83-yard rushing performance ever managed to keep Oregon trapped in a dark shed for long chunks of time on Saturday night.

The Terps proved to be a bit peskier than their past performances might’ve suggested, and maybe there was a brief moment where the fable of the tortoise and the hare felt all-too real.

But this game was never truly in doubt for the Ducks—despite committing a seasons-worst twelve penalties for ninety-five yards—and Dan even pulled out a few tricks in the end to help make the final score look respectable at 39-18.

It’s safe to say that the story of the game could be summed up with the entire sequence between Jordan Burch’s fake punt, Dillon’s record-setting touchdown pass to Gernorris Wilson, and then Josh Conerly’s Mariota-esque zone read on the two point conversion.

The three-score victory managed to be equal parts fun and ugly—otherwise known as fugly—and also helped Oregon improve to 10-0 for the first time since 2012, and for only the third time in program history.

It’s been an insane season, but if we know anything about Dan Lanning we know that he likes three things: recruiting, Zyns, and relentless improvement.

And there was plenty of room to improve after this one.

Maryland’s first big accomplishment was that they had the ball for almost 19 minutes in the first half—playing a solid game of keep-away and staying on offense for twice as long as we did.

We ended up closing that gap by the end of the game, but that’s one of the more lopsided time of possession stats I’ve seen in an Oregon win in forever.

Our defense struggled the most with getting off the field when it mattered most.

And that really sounds silly to say since the Terps were just 7/19 on third down, but to put that number into perspective, we held Michigan, Purdue, and Ohio to just 4 conversions on third down each.

I’m sure the fact that we gifted them 6 of their 19 total first downs with our own penalties doesn’t help our/my perception of what went wrong, but it was surely a frustration shared by all Duck fans throughout the middle part of that game.

But it’s not like we gave up anything explosive—or as if a single Maryland player had a historic performance against us—we just couldn’t do the most boring and most important thing any team could ever do: force more punts.

Billy Edwards Jr. got rid of the ball quickly and tried his darnedest to erase our front seven from the game. He even threw a few great deep-ish passes that helped his top receivers beat our corners one-on-one.

It was one of the best two-interception nights I’ve seen from an opposing quarterback—so much so that my dad even wondered if he had any interest in trading that shiny red uniform for some green and yellow next year.

Despite the penalties and the woes on key downs, the defense mostly held strong, and they created three key turnovers—one of which was a Burch forced fumble that Brandon Johnson scooped up and scored for Oregon’s first real momentum swing of the night.

This was only the third game all season where Oregon gave up 18 or more points, so we are thankfully grading this defense on a curve, but they ultimately weren’t my biggest concern on Saturday.

In my preview, I wondered how our offense would respond after losing Tez Johnson and Marcus Harper.

It was obviously tough for the entire unit to get into a rhythm while Maryland was possessing the ball so well, but it was also clear that we weren’t just going to reload at two key positions in one week.

Our offensive line looked good enough throughout the game with Dave Iuli and Kawika Rogers alternating at right guard. They didn’t give up any sacks and they blocked well enough in the run game—especially in the second half.

But even though the big fellas were solid, you could still tell that Dillon was slightly less comfortable and less confident while he stood (read: shuffled) in the pocket.

I’m still not as concerned anymore with the o-line for as long as we don’t have Harper, but I think it’s safe to say that we really missed Tez.

We lacked his unique brand of speed and reliability that makes him a threat in the middle of the field and demands the focus and discipline of a defense—and also all the thing that makes him Dillon’s favorite safety valve.

I’ve talked a lot about the fact that we have three WR1s on this roster, but we clearly only have one Tez.

To their credit, Maryland did a really good job of making sure we didn’t get anything big through the air, but Will Stein is going to have to find better longterm solutions for zone defenses because 183 total passing yards ain’t going to cut it the rest of the way.

And to Evan Stewart’s credit, his final touchdown scamper looked like his best Tez impression, and I’d love to see a whole lot more of that.

On the bright side, T-Ferg finally scored a touchdown, which ties him with Justin Peelle for second-most career TDs by an Oregon tight end, and places him just one score behind Justin Wilcox for the top spot.

Ferg had the most targets out of everyone with twelve—which was surely a sign of DG’s appreciation for at least having one of his favorite receivers back in the lineup.

But this offense is clearly not built to center around a tight end, so here’s hoping that Gary Bryant can increase his presence in the slot, or that we can find other solutions like more RB wheel routes or QB draws that might be able to mimic or manufacture Tez’s usual production.

It wasn’t glamorous, and there’s plenty of bad film from Saturday for Dan to harp on all week long, but we won by 21 points and my buddy Jordan summed it up pretty simply for me yesterday when he said:

“If that was Oregon’s version of a stinker, then I’m pretty damn happy with it.”

Go Ducks.