Special Teams, Be Special

Life after the Smurf Curse.

The word of the week is “correctable.”

Thanks to Atticus Sappington and his 25-yard game-winning field goal, the Ducks squeaked by Boise State, 37-34, and are off to a 2-0 start.

I want to celebrate being undefeated and finally beating Boise, but I’m torn…

Maybe it’s because the offense still stalled out in the first half. Or maybe it’s because we don’t have a center yet. Or perhaps it’s because Bryce Boettcher has been our best linebacker so far.

Pick your poison, but that bye week can’t come any sooner.

However, I’ll start with a positive:

We all wanted to see a deep threat in the passing game, and I think we found him.

Evan Stewart caught a booming 67-yard pass that set up a Dillon Gabriel rushing touchdown—which was another thing I prayed for in my preview.

And then Stewart caught a 34-yard TD that led to the best celebration dance I’ve ever seen (if we don’t include when my wife gets a dub on Fortnite).

And THEN, we had another explosive pass to Traeshon Holden thanks to a well-read blitz by Dillon and the o-line.

We knew this team had some fireworks in them, and I was glad we got to see them in action, even if the presentation was closer to New Year’s Eve fireworks than a full-blown Fourth of July.

Because there are still a ton of things we gotta fix before we play any OSU.

And the group that still needs the most fixing is obviously the most talked about unit of the season so far: the offensive line.

Last week, I begged Lanning and Stein to try anything different when things weren’t working on offense and along the offensive line.

Unfortunately, I think they listened to me.

They tried a zillion different combinations within the interior line. Poncho and Pickard both played at center, and three different interior lineman rotated around between Nishod Strother, Poncho, and Marcus Harper.

None of these permutations separated themselves as the true answer moving forward, and I still think (read: hope) that the whole position group is missing Matthew Bedford dearly, but I do think the “best” rotation is the one with Strother and Harper as guards, and Poncho at center.

Look, Poncho didn’t play like JPJ, but at least he didn’t snap the ball while the officials were talking or when Dillon least expected it.

And as we head into our first hostile environment—our first rivalry game—it’s high-time we settle on having one center who can build trust with our veteran QB and limit the bonehead mistakes.

And that one center better be Poncho.

The offensive line is obviously the story of this game once again, but special teams was the difference.

It was literally the difference, seeing as our offense only accounted for 20 points, while our two kick/punt return TDs and Atticus Sappington’s game-winner were mathematically vital.

But also because the momentum those Tez’s punt return and Noah’s kick return/Jayden Limar’s touchdown electrified the home crowd and kept the momentum alive.

Without those insane moments, I’m not sure this weird game would’ve stayed weird in our favor.

So we’ve covered offense and special teams, but what about the best unit on the team?

If we simply judged the defense by that “34 points allowed” stat, we’d be doing them a disservice.

We all knew that Jeanty was going to break one loose, it was just a matter of when.

Unfortunately, much like Idaho’s flea flicker, it came on the first play of a drive right after our offense once again put the defense in a bad position.

But other than that, I think the defensive line acquitted themselves rather nicely. Harmon was still a chaos agent and if you take out Jeanty’s 70-yard TD, they held Boise to just 151 rushing yards on 32 carries.

And I’m pleased to re-report that our secondary is Good™.

Oregon had twelve PBUs on the night and I’ve never felt more secure each time the ball went up in the air.

Sure, Madsen wasn’t a good quarterback—he was just 17 for 40—but last year’s secondary didn’t perform that well against any competition, and we can see that Dan clearly made it his mission to bolster this position group through the portal.

Jabbar is CB1, but BJ has been a revelation so far, and so has Nikko Reed. We have an embarrassment of riches, and I can’t even imagine what kind of depth we’ll unlock if/when Florence and Alexander are back in the rotation.

At times, Saturday brought relief. At a lot of other times, it raised more concerns, but Bowerman always said, “the hills will find you out,” and that true-ism should be at the front of the Ducks’ minds as they prepare to face off against the hill people of Corvallis.

But we’ll talk about that on Friday.

Go Ducks.