I’m Worrying Darling

David Shaw has a job for life, he should just chill out.

With an 8 o’clock kickoff tonight, a bad-bad Stanford team has a chance to once again spoil an Oregon season that is going pretty well.

I’ll be honest, Stanford scares me. It’s not logical, but fear rarely is.

Pretty much every team in The Division Formerly Known As The North scares me by a factor of ten—regardless of how “good” either team seems to be playing in a given year—but Stanford carries a special kind of fear.

Not including 2001, Stanford was a doormat in this conference for a long time, and they stayed that way for most of Oregon’s post-Kenny Wheaton rise.

But in the Chip Era, Stanford was our number one conference rival. When the schedule came out, you had to circle the ‘Ferd game because losing to them put you behind the eight-ball for winning the North, and since the South was constantly down back then, that game really served as the conference title.

But as of late, Stanford has been in a really bad way. 

David Shaw basically has a job for life—and he’s been coaching like it.

They haven’t beat a Power 5 team in nearly a calendar year. Recruiting took a dip in 2021 with the Cardinal only pulling in the seventh-ranked high school recruiting class in the Pac-12, and this season 247Sports has them ranked 117th nationally in transfer portal success.

So, who was that last Power 5 team they beat?

No clue. And I don’t care to google it either. Let’s talk ball:

Starting on the ground, Stanford comes into Eugene with the 95th-worst rush defense in the country—and they haven’t played any monster rushing teams either, just Colgate, USC, and UDub. I’ll always have love for Travis Dye, but he isn’t the only reason they’re giving up 4.6 yards per carry.

And in total defense, the Cardinal have given up about 400 yards per game.

Sure, SC and UDub are both pretty good offensive teams, but Oregon’s offense racked up over 600 yards last week on a very athletic WSU game and have been on a general tear over the last three weeks.

I expect Bo and Dillingham to get us into a rhythm early, and then we’ll see a steady diet of Bucky Irving, Noah Whittington, Sean Dollars, and Jordan James (maybe Cardwell if he’s finally healthy?)—who knows, we might run for 300 yards tonight.

Stanford is equally as directionless on offense this year too, but I can guarantee you that Tanner McKee will throw at least two back corner fade touchdowns to the tallest wide receivers you’ve ever seen—and he’ll probably attempt that throw an upwards of ten times. 

Last week, UDub’s middling pass rush ate Stanford’s offensive line alive.

The Huskies sacked McKee eight times, and I’m really hoping that foreshadows a successful night of Oregon getting home and cashing in on sacks and negative plays.

I expect that the Cardinal will have to throw a lot in the second half especially, and if we haven’t had a couple of sacks by then, I hope DJ Johnson’s return from his first half targeting suspension will speed that process up a bit.

On the ground, Stanford will be without their leading rusher, EJ Smith—son of Emmitt Smith—who is actually out for the rest of the year with an undisclosed injury.

Even if Oregon’s defense is a “weak” point, our guests today are going to have a tough time moving the ball without their RB1 and behind a struggling offensive front.

All that said, Shaw and Stanford will always be our Freddy Krueger.

He will find us. Especially if he can catch us in a late night, dream-like state. But our offense is just playing too electric right now, and Stanford just doesn’t seem to have the firepower or the results on paper to resist eventually getting overpowered tonight in Autzen.

Let’s be Jason tonight. Freddy can take the L.

45-17.

Go Ducks.