A Cougar Runs Through It: Washington State Game Preview
Have Tyler Shough and the Oregon Ducks found their foil in this new run-and-shoot Wazzu team?
The 11th-ranked Oregon Ducks (1-0) head up to a cold, wet, possibly stormy/snowy Pullman this Saturday to face a transformed Wazzu team (1-0) and their electric new QB.
In my review of Tyler Shough’s performance against Stanford, I quoted UO alum Dan Rubenstein when I noted that the guy might have, “a liiittle bit of Baker Mayfield in him.”
And the same could easily be said about Washington State freshman quarterback, Jayden de Laura, after he turned in a stellar debut performance of his own.
de Laura passed for 18 of 33 (54%), 227 yards, 2 touchdowns, and an INT, in a 38-28 win over what should be an improved Oregon State.
Not only did de Laura and RoboShough both lead their teams to division wins in their first career starts, but they turned in eerily similar stat lines:
One extra touchdown and just one more completion for de Laura. Shough had a better completion percentage (65%), but also threw one pick and passed for the exact same yardage. They both also ran for a touchdown.
Saturday evening might feature these two young guns kicking off a three or four rivalry that could shape the future of the Pac-12 North.
Oregon’s defense was strangely vulnerable in week one, and notably in the absence of the formidable pass rush we expected. They’ll once again be without my favorite player along the d-line, Popo Aumavae, as he’ll still be out with an unspecified injury, but I still think the talent pool is deep enough in the front seven to make up for that loss. And it seems like practice this week has shown signs of exactly that kind of improvement.
Rob Moseley’s Quack Minute Twitter series talked about a two-minute drill on Wednesday where Shough and the offense were driving, but the defense tightened up in the red zone (just as they did against The ‘Ferd) and ended the drill on a called sack by Kayvon.
An increased edge pass rush from guys like KT, and some blitz-heavy linebackers like Adrian Jackson (#29) or Andrew Faoliu (#55), will be key to turning some of those hurries into full-fledged sacks.
DC Andy Avalos has surely taken the week to refocus his defense and preach greater physicality in order to get into the backfield. His preparation is also probably helped by the fact that he is facing a familiar foe from his days in the Mountain West, seeing as how Wazzu’s first year head coach, Nick Rolovich, was the HC at Hawaii back when Avalos was at Boise State.
Rolo’s run-and-shoot offense is similar to the one he built in Honolulu, but it’s a far cry from Mike Leach’s Air Raid. That difference was loud and clear last weekend when the Cougs rushed for more yards (229) than they managed through the air (227). It was the first time a Wazzu squad has out-rushed their passing game in basically a decade, and they did it without their seventeenth-year stud running back, Max Borghi.
Stanford’s offensive line and downhill run game managed to gash the Ducks in the early quarters last Saturday, exposing Oregon to the tune of 197 yards on the ground (6.4 ypc). Even if Borghi is still out this week, the Ducks will have to bulk up their rush defense against the solid redshirt senior, Deon McIntosh. McIntosh rushed for 147 yards (8.2 ypc), one score, and a long run of 49 yards—all career marks for the Notre Dame/East Mississippi JC transfer.
de Laura also put in one of the best running performances of any modern Cougar QB with 43 yards and his aforementioned touchdown on the ground.
This week, Austin Faoliu compared de Laura’s dual threat nature to that of Khalil Tate, but Tate might be an outdated point of reference in the Andy Avalos era. Auburn’s Bo Nix might be the best recent comparison to de Laura. The Ducks will end up facing both those signal callers in their upstart freshman seasons, and the Ducks did a pretty alright job containing Nix right up until the end of that game, even picking him off twice.
McIntosh and de Laura’s feet will have to look out for some of Oregon’s big run-stoppers like true freshman inside linebacker, Noah Sewell, and redshirt freshmen defensive tackles, Kristian Williams (#91) and Keyon Ware-Hudson (#95). Those three are all new additions to Avalos’ squad, but they all played a huge role in helping the rush defense improve over the course of the Stanford game.
And the snowy, frigid conditions of the Pullman wilderness could turn this game into the kind of run-first slugfest that Oregon-Wazzu hasn’t seen in a long time.
If the Oregon defense can weather the storm that a newborn WSU rushing attack might give bring (with or without Borghi), increase their pass rush to put serious pressure on the young de Laura, and if Avalos’ familiarity with Rolo—even if it was only one game, a 52-16 BSU win—can help him call another great game, I feel pretty good about the Ducks’ chances.
Oregon fans know that Wazzu has been something of an Achilles’ heel over the last half decade. Of all the PNW teams, these guys have the most serious claim to actually having our number.
The last time these two teams met ‘on the Palouse’—AKA College Gameday’s last ever visit to Pullman—resulted in a fourth straight Cougar victory, a crimson and grey field storming, and the birth of The Myth of Gardner Minshew™.
Finally, in 2019, a late-arriving Ducks team salvaged their entire season (despite their own best efforts to give the game away in the final minutes), and set up Camden Lewis to end the Coug’s streak by nailing a game winning 26-yarder.
Last year’s victory was sweet, but it was anything but decisive. I know there are still a ton of Ducks that feel the sting of that 2018 loss, and who would love to go into the Cougar’s Den and leave no doubt.
I focused a lot here on WSU’s new offense and what the Oregon defense has to improve upon, and that’s because I spent a good amount of time talking about the Ducks’ offense in my review of the Stanford game.
The offensive TL;DR is:
I’m pretty confident in Joe Moorhead’s gamesmanship and play calling. Even if the weather is on the colder side, I still think the Ducks will push the tempo and keep everyone’s blood pumping.
Cristobal and Mirabal have built a stellar run-blocking, pass-protecting offensive line rotation from almost nothing. Ryan Walk and the rest of The Breakfast Club, will continue to be key to the success of the most interesting power zone rushing attack in the country.
And, if you were to ask me which of these young Pac-12 QBs I’d rather have behind center, I would take Tyler Shough every day of the week and twice on Sunday. This weekend is his first big road test, and I think he’s more than ready for it.
38-21, good guys.
Go Ducks.