The Ducks (and I) will march into Husky Stadium tomorrow at 12:30 pm with revenge on our minds, hate in our hearts, and a little extra tape around our ankles.
Last year—while Bo was still upright—the Ducks scored the go-ahead touchdown with 3:40 left in the 3rd.
Troy Franklin caught a 67 yarder from Nix, and I turned to my dad and gleefully said, “I think he could still commit to Washington!”
I was mocking a common Husky Twitter conspiracy that Franklin—who picked Oregon over UW—could possibly flip and decide to be a Dawg after all. They wanted him so badly, and they held out hope beyond the very end.
Whelp. Lady karma witnessed the joy I took in their misery and surely made me pay.
We picked Penix off at the goal line, crawled the ball downfield for 10 and half minutes in the fourth, and ultimately lost our quarterback’s ankle. And then we lost the game.
I’ve been a headcase of a Duck fan since that moment. I think my brain broke that day.
The image of an agonized Bo sitting on the ground has been seared into my brain. Right up there with Dixon and Clemens.
I’ve spent the last year writing about my Ducks and watching them with fear and agony—and I’m sure some of you have grown tired of hearing my Marty McFly-ass “aw-geez-Doc-I-don’t-know-about-this-one” attitude.
Well, lucky for you, I got struck by lightning yesterday.
I had spent the last two weeks with an absolute pit in my stomach about this Husky game. I’ve been so afraid of their offense. Penix and those receivers had me drunk on fear since the day they beat us.
But my moment of clarity arrived yesterday morning, and it was in the form of a calm, knowing confidence that we have this thing handled.
Some otherworldly football force gave me the gift of three essential keys to the game, and then all-but guaranteed me that Oregon was going to deliver on those three things. All the way to victory (read: vict’ry).
First, we beat ‘em at their own game.
We already know that they will want to be dynamic in their own long passing game. That’s how their offense works. A lot of people have been saying that it’ll be our superior rushing attack is going to be the difference, but what if we also just passed the ball better than they did?
Come with me.
Washington wins the toss, defers, kicks a touchback.
First play from our 25. Bo rolls to his right on a slower developing play. It’s a deep shot. We all see what’s happening.
I would say it’s going to Franklin, but that’s too obvious. Bo hits Gary Bryant in stride. Maybe it’s just for 35 yards, maybe it’s for the whole enchilada, but it’s probably for 35.
We’re off to the races.
The Husky D is already on their heels, and the next two plays we run it twice, maybe thrice in a row. Bucky bounces for 8. Then he bounces for another 14.
Oregon will run the ball well tomorrow, no doubt, but I think it’s a missed opportunity against this questionable Husky secondary/defense if we don’t hit them in the mouth with Bo’s arm.
We score first, stop the Huskies on their first drive, and a quick two-score lead will make the country club sail-gaters of Husky Stadium go comatose.
But I’m making it sound so simple on the other side of the ball, too. How do we stop that potent air attack? That’s my second key:
Coverage sacks.
We have 18 sacks on the season, and my uneducated guess is that 13 of those can be easily credited to our coverage in the secondary (I can at least confidently say that 6 of the 7 Shaduer sacks were).
The Ducks don’t blitz a ton, and that’s because our four defensive lineman have gotten plenty of push, and they’ve been getting home all by themselves. That allows us to drop six or even seven guys back in coverage, and it’s gonna be tough for Penix to find somebody to throw it to.
Look, Washington’s passing game is number one in the nation statistically. It looks scary, for sure, but I honestly think I’m finally seeing right through them.
Their receivers can be electric to watch, I’ll give them that. Rome Odunze (#1), Jalen McMillan (#11), and Ja’Lynn Polk (#2) all managed to have their big moments against us last year, and they’ve basically all had multiple 100-yard games already this season.
But ALSO, I watched this one clip on Twitter of Odunze “beating” a Michigan State player a few weeks ago, and it made me realize that this could be a house-of-cards receiving corps.
The stats, the hype, and everything else has been stacked on top of a system of quick-release passes, a veteran quarterback, and basic probability math.
“We’ll just do this so many times that we’ll eventually catch a defender off guard. We hope.” - Kalen DeBoer, probably.
And maybe they’ll get a couple again. Just like they did last year. But as of right now I’m done believing in their Chris-Kyle-on-the-Superdome-roof narrative.
That one Odunze clip really just exposed piss-poor coverage on Michigan State’s part, and to top it off, Odunze also just looked slow. Period. I can’t explain it any better than that.
My credentials in this field of expertise are: I run and I love watching track and field. I know fast when I see it. And his giddy up just lacks any giddy, and a lot of the up.
I even went back and watched his highlights from last year to test my new hypothesis—I did my own research!
He’s a crafty route runner, and he can catch balls thrown in tight windows, but he is not a separation guy, and therefore he is now stuck in my mind as Rome Slow-dunze, and that nickname alone has helped me to release so much of the fear I had harbored for him and his fellow Husky wideouts.
Plus, their offensive line hasn’t been asked to pass protect for longer than 3-4 seconds all year. Even a little bit of competent coverage from our athletic secondary will allow Dorlus & Co. to cause problems.
Khyree Jackson and the rest of our DBs can absolutely cover these guys for most—if not all—of the game. Please, stop letting people convince you we’re lining up against three Tavon Austins tomorrow. We aren’t!
And this brings me around to my final point. We have the best quarterback.
Some of you may be unfortunately familiar with a Seattle radio host named Dave “Softy” Mahler.
Softy is an old pro. He’s a vintage loudmouth, obnoxious radio guy, and he loves his Dawgs.
Every year around this game I find myself drifting over to KJR-Seattle to hear what the guys up north have to say about us.
I’m a real sicko like that.
And even Softy—an admitted Husky Honk—has said it over and over this week: Oregon is the more complete team in this matchup.
The Ducks run the ball better, and they play defense massively better. He thinks that, I already told you that I think that, and the pundits around the country tend to agree.
But where Softy—and everyone else—keeps stopping is when we start talking about the quarterbacks.
Michael Penix probably has the stat-padded edge in terms of “Heisman hype” right now, but that has a lot of folks forgetting about Mr. Bodacious himself.
And it was during Softy’s ranting that I realized just how desperately the haters and losers (of which, there are many) still want to cling to the “Good Bo/Bad Bo” caricature.
In his infinite wisdom, Softy started talking about Nix’s performance in the Georgia game.
“Bo is shakeable!” “He played like garbage in that game!” “Maybe the environment will be too big for him!”
For Davey Dawg to have reach all the way back to a version of Bo Nix that hasn’t existed in 17 games of football was the biggest self report I’ve heard from him in a long time.
No surprise here, but Softy is either scared, blind, or both.
I want to thank Dave, however, for reminding me of one, essential fact that I was overlooking when I was in my Fear Era about this game:
Bo Nix exists.
Bringing up the UGA game only reminded me that Bo’s struggles are in the rearview, and that his leadership, poise, legs, and “it” factor are going to be all the difference we really ever needed as we storm into the Seattle City Dump.
Even if I ignored our stronger run game, or our more trustworthy defense, or our general talent advantage, I’d still feel better about us than I did about them. All thanks to Bo.
Oregon 38, Washington 27.
Go Ducks.