Utah, Next Year's Big 12 Champ
The Ducks travel to the land of salty lakes, flavored sodas, and jazz(?).
The Ducks had a sleepy-ish start to their 38-24 victory over Wazzu, but they pulled away, played dominant football, and ended up looked like the lethal rushing team we all know they are.
Despite the wonderful vintage threads, last week’s Cougar game kind of felt unremarkable in a lot of ways.
Oregon took care of business, and the final score looks closer than the game ever really was, but it felt like the Ducks were just going through the motions a bit—especially coming off of that emotional loss the week before.
But hey, if you can give yourself a mental break AND win handily in this year’s Pac-12, you must be a pretty good football team!
One of the brightest spots from the Coug beatdown was actually the team blocking.
Pat Herbert obviously had his iconic ear-holing of an unsuspecting Coug player, and Jackson Powers-Johnson continues to grab NFL eyes with his highlight-reel pancakes and the honor of being PFF’s highest-rated Power 5 center.*
*Admittedly, PFF has had some evaluation misses. They thought Thomas Graham was the best corner in the country. But on the other hand, they were always high on Dede Lenoir, and now look at him.
And thanks in no small part to the stellar blocking, Bucky had himself a day.
Buck The Duck averaged a whopping 8.6 yards per carry, racked up 180 all-purpose yards, and three big touchdowns.
He proved once again that when in doubt—and when a lot of our other stuff ain’t working—we should just give him the ball and let him go.
Unfortunately, Bucky suffered a pretty scary injury after his work was done last Saturday. He walked off under his own power though, and Dan Lanning has seemed to indicate that he’s expected to play tomorrow.
Here’s hoping that’s actually the case, and we can breathe a small sigh of relief for his health.
Still, I wouldn't be surprised or scared if Jordan James came out as the primary back for the first drive or two against Utah. WSU happened to be his first career 100-yard game, so we know he’s hitting his stride behind this offensive line, too.
Matayo Uiagalelei had a breakout, Pac-12 Freshman of the Week performance with two TFLs and his first-career sack. That’s always a good sign for the kind of player he’s going to grow up to be in this rapidly improving Dan & Tosh defense.
We also finally had a Jestin Jacobs sighting!
The Iowa transfer linebacker had been injured since he arrived in Eugene, but he quietly suited up in the throwback uniform and did his best Peter Simon impression with six total tackles and his first sack as a Duck.
If there was anything new that could’ve happened last week to make me feel better about this Utah game, it was the arrival of a fresh, havoc-causing linebacker like Jacobs.
Speaking of 13th-ranked Utah: Utah is in peak Utah form this season.
They have been injury-riddled, they have a self-proclaimed pig farmer playing quarterback, a safety is their best running back, and they just defeated an insanely talented USC team last week—like they do every year.
You probably already know this, but Utah’s real starting QB, Cam Rising, is out for the year. He blew out his knee in the Rose Bowl and coach Kyle Whittingham has spent this season pretending he miiiight be able to come back each week. But nope, we’re going to be facing off against the Trojan-slayer, Bryson Barnes.
Barnes—the aforementioned pig farmer—is still essentially a mystery. He’s a former walk-on that has played in 18 games in his career, started just four of those, and Utah has won every game he’s started.
Not a bad track record, but that’s sort of where the impressive stats end for Bacon Boy.
Barnes has a career 61% completion percentage and boasts a 6-4 TD-INT ratio.
Between him a the other backup, run-heavy Nate Johnson, the Utes have the 116th-ranked passing offense in the nation.
Unlike Rising, Barnes doesn’t make up for his passing deficiencies with his feet. He has rushed just 23 times in five games this year, racking up 67 yards and two scores.
The best thing Barnes has going for him is some of that trademark Utah Quarterback Voodoo.
Utah Quarterback Voodoo is that thing where: no matter where he came from, no matter how bad he has been, and no matter how many pigs the guy has milked, sometimes the Utah QB just gets possessed in big moments by a looming spirit of chaos. This demonic presence helps him overcome all of his physical shortcomings and the guy gets to play hero for the day in front of a rabid stadium.
It happens. So have your family exorcist on speed dial in case Bryson Barnes starts playing like what I just described.
Not-so fun fact: Utah has won 27-straight at home with fans in the stands.
They are really tough to beat in Salt Lake, and it’s hard not to be reminded of that fact when we think back to the last time we played these guys there in 2021.
And then when we played them two weeks later in Vegas.
But feel free to forget about that double nightmare. That was a different Duck team with a different head coach who was understandably busy negotiating contracts and talking to South Beach realtors.
I mentioned earlier that Bucky should be healthy, and we’re going to need him.
Utah’s rush defense ranks fifth in the nation, allowing just 78 yards per game, and a measly 2.97 yards per rush.
Luckily, the matchup tomorrow is good-on-good, since we know the Ducks have found their groove on the ground and have become the sixth-best rushing attack nationally.
JPJ and our big boys up front will have to maintain their Elon-level blocking powers in order to overcome a Utah program that is historically physical at the line of scrimmage.
And they’ll have to do it in pass protection, too.
The Utes will be sending Jonah Elliss (#83), a junior defensive end with ten total sacks on the season.
In fact, Duck fans might be pretty dang proud of our defense’s 25 team sacks so far this year—as they should be—but Utah can be just as proud since they have the exact number.
Elliss is just one piece of the puzzle, they all get after the quarterback, and Bo’s escapability is going to be a key element to how the Ducks can move the ball down the field.
If the Husky game featured the two best offenses in the Pac, this game has the two top defenses.
Dan & Tosh are going to need to call another great game, especially when Utah’s defense gets a stop or two against us, we’ll need to stop them right back. We can’t afford to give their less-than-great offense anything easy.
Khyree Jackson has been banged up since the Stanford game, left the Husky game hurt, and didn’t play last week, but it seems as if people are thinking he’ll be ready to go this weekend.
Even though Utah isn’t going to be testing Oregon too much in the vertical passing game, it is never a bad thing to get your CB1 back, especially if he’s getting a chance to feed on a pork-fed son of the Beehive State like Barnes.
Dan has already proved he can win a slugfest against Utah, and now he just has to do it at 4,600’ above see level.
Maybe this year Utah’s home-field advantage provides a different dynamic, but our fully healthy Bo should give us a new wrinkle that we didn’t have last year, too
The Gameday crew is following us around again this week, and I surely hope that Lee Corso realizes the error of his ways and returns to his time-honored tradition of picking the Ducks.
If he doesn't, you’re just going to have to settle for my pick:
Oregon 32, Utah 27. In a mud fight.
Go Ducks.
Very tired of the pig farmer narrative already, at least half of the beavers roster are surely ex-pig farmers, probably a couple alpaca farmers too.
I love pigs milk!