Ducks Play In The Rose Bowl

The Big Ten opener we've all been dreaming of.

Here it is, our highly anticipated Big Ten opener.

So which corn-fed, midwestern team are we going to play inside their stadium-that-fits-more-than-their-entire-town’s-population?

*Checks schedule*

We’re at UCLA this week?

You’re telling me that we went through all that realignment bullshit just to start our historic Big Ten era against a team that we already basically played every year?

And that instead of playing against a bunch of beef boys that spent their summers baling hay, we have to play the most kale-fed, Empty Stadium Havers this side of the Rockies?

Welp, at least it means we’re playing at a reasonable time of day.

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In the 2004 garbage dump of a Best Picture winner, Crash, Don Cheadle’s character opens with the line:

“In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something.”

And besides being a bad line of dialogue and a just-okay plea for walkable cities, this quote could serve as a perfectly fine way to describe Oregon’s mindset going into this game.

We’ve been trapped behind the glass wall of the Bye Week—fresh off our first convincing performance of the year—and now we’re desperate to crash into somebody, just to feel something.

And unfortunately for UCLA, they’re that somebody.

Our old PCC pals, the Bruins, have started the year off 1-2 (0-1 in Big Ten play).

It hasn’t been good, and some folks have even gone on record this season to predict that they’re either the worst team in the conference or the second worst team.

They have a brand new head coach, DeShaun Foster—pictured above with taped up fingers, #FootballGuy—who was a former running back for UCLA and was most recently their RB coach before taking over for Sleepy Chip Kelly.

They look bad at first glance, but I’m not personally sold on them being absolute B1G bottom feeders.

They squeaked by Hawaii, got waxxed at home by Indiana, and then just as their backs were against the wall, the scrappy 8-clappers went down to Baton Rouge last week and gave LSU hell (for a little bit).

Tied 17-17 with a little over 6 minutes left in the third quarter, UCLA played their hearts out and legitimately looked like they could’ve become one of the biggest stories of the day in college football last week.

But their offense stalled out in the second half, and a fourth quarter interception by QB Ethan Garbers (#4), basically sealed a run away victory for LSU.

But for a split second there, I was pretty sure UCLA at least wasn’t Really Bad™.

My theory: UCLA can only play well in front of real crowds.

They played on a rec field on the Big Island, and then in front of 4,000 of their closest friends in Pasadena vs. the Hoosiers, and couldn’t even start to figure things out until they entered into SEC country.

And seeing as how my cousin AJ and brother Peter won’t be nearly loud enough to make the September Rose Bowl sound like Death Valley, the Bruins might be shit out of luck tomorrow.

As I mentioned before, Chip got sick and tired of having to work at his job—opting to move into Ryan Day’s basement and scribble play designs with crayon and construction paper—so UCLA’s offensive prowess has been severely stunted.

They cannot run the ball worth a plugged nickel.

Chip would be rolling over in his grave if he saw they were averaging a measly 60.3 yards per game on the ground, which is good for 131st in the country—that used to be last place in FBS, but now it’s only third-to-last.

UCLA had a very bad blocking day against LSU, too, giving up five total sacks, and two of those came from former Duck Bradyn Swinson.

I’m sure that Matayo and Tatum have been watching plenty of Swinson’s game tape this week—and maybe they’ll even ask Jeff Bassa to text him for any tips, seeing as they were part of the same freshman class in 2021.

As much as I’d like to see our star edge guys crash into the Bruin backfield, I’d also love to see young Blake Purchase return to the fold after we only saw him for eight snaps against OSU.

And naturally I’m hoping the Bye Week was good to Jeff Bassa so we can see him on more than just third down and long.

Ethan Garbers has shown a few flashes in his career of being Pretty Good™ sometimes, but he’s the exact brand of inaccurate, interception-happy passer that our secondary can finally feast on—especially if their offensive line can’t protect him for very long.

Garbers has thrown more interceptions this year (4) than he has touchdowns (3), and he’s only completing 56% of his passes.

They can’t prevent sacks, and their defense can’t seem to get sacks either. They’re tied for 87th in nation in that category with just 1.67 per game.

Despite their struggles in pass rush, the Bruins defensive front has allowed just 92 yards per game on the ground this year.

This makes them the best rush defense we’ll have faced to this point, but that was also the case going into the Oregon State game, and our ground game finally found its groove in that one, so let’s hope for more of the same.

Expect our o-line group of Conerly/Strother/Poncho/Harper/Cornelius to build on the momentum they gained against the Beavs and to keep making gaps bigger than the Grand Canyon for Jordan James to run through.

TL;DR:

UCLA can’t run the ball, which means they’ll have to pass (especially if they get down early, which they likely will).

And unless Garbers has a career day, I’d tend to think our secondary will eat him up (if Matayo & Co. don’t get to him first).

However, they’ve been tough-ish against the run so far, which makes it another mildly interesting test for our one-game-old offensive line and run game. We should feel pretty good about the future of that group if they have another successful outing on the ground tomorrow night.

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Oh yeah, I almost forgot, this game is past my bedtime, but Dan doesn’t seem to care too much:

"What an opportunity. More time for us to prepare, more time for us to get ready." -

- Dan Lanning, on the 8pm PST kickoff vs. UCLA.

I had an old take that Jaylon Redd changed his jersey number from 30 to 6 because it was less fabric, therefore less weight, and it made him faster, so this big-brained quote from Dan is right up my alley.

We’re all playing checkers, and he’s playing Settlers of Catan.

Back in the day, Chris “The Quitter” Petersen cried so much about 7:30pm kickoffs that ESPN went down on the field at Husky Stadium mid-game with literal cupcakes to mock their schedule and their “cantankerous” complaints.

And then they just kept slotting those Husky teams for late night games and went on with their lives.

But Dan wouldn’t be caught dead whining about the time of day. He’ll just shake your hand and thank you for every extra minute of preparation he can get.

42-16, UC Eugene.

Go Ducks.

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Also, feel free to revisit last week’s story about Dolly Parton and her love of Eugene, Oregon: