Tonight, your Oregon Ducks are in Vegas for the Pac-12 Championship Game in rematch against 17th-ranked Utah.
In the darkest days, after the Stanford loss, I told you all that the season just got a whole lot smaller.
Oregon needed to put their heads down, stack wins upon wins, and hope that by December they could look up and find themselves in Vegas.
And then after the Ducks limped through the Cal game, I told you that it was clearly our time to ride the dragon with this football team, and that we’d be well-served to “embrace our new lives on the razor’s edge.”
I asked if Travis Dye could carry the load, and if a young running back was going to grow up quick and become a legitimate RB2. Both Dye and Byron Cardwell answered that question.
I asked if KT would return with a vengeance, and if Verone, Noah, Mykael, and Dorlus could rally the troops and carry a hobbled defense to the top of the North. They all answered that question.
And I also said that AB still gave us the stability that we had been deeply lacking at every other position on the field, and that JoMo’s devotion to the run game would allow him to pull us back out from the abyss. Ten wins later, I’d like to think we can all finally agree on that answer, too.
It’s clear that Oregon is bringing a resilient ass football team into Allegiant Stadium this evening, and they’ll be led by a coach who doesn’t lose Pac-12 Title Games.
Sure, we’ll be going up against a Utah team that punched us in the chin just two weeks ago, but last season Oregon hadn’t won a football game in three weeks prior to shellacking the undefeated Trojans in their own stadium.
And the year before that we were apparently going to get pounded out of the building by Utah and the best defensive line of all time. That didn’t happen either.
All I’m saying is that these title games don’t make sense when Mario Cristobal is in charge.
We’ll see a new wrinkle for sure. In 2019, it was Herbie’s legs. In 2020, it was AB.
But even before we see what this year’s wrinkle is, we’ll see Cristobal & Co. recenter themselves and run right at Utah—something they hesitated to do in Salt Lake.
The Ducks will look to control the game, stay on schedule on offense, and ultimately play on their own smashmouth terms.
Travis Dye needs the ball ten times in the first quarter. And then AB needs to have a designed run at least five times in the first half, too. That’s when you know we’re moving it our way.
The offensive line got plenty of push throughout the whole first Utah game, but once the score jumped to 21-0, and 28-0, the Ducks weren’t in any position to play possession football.
If and when Oregon inevitably gets behind the sticks on offense, it will be crucial that AB is able to be even half as great passing the ball on third down as he was against OSU (7 for 7). Find Devon and Kris out there just like he did against the Beavs, and if that number is something closer to 4/6 or 5/8, we will be just fine.
And on defense, we’ll need to see tackling jump up by a factor of ten from that last game.
Noah, Verone, LaDuke, and Jamal (and Clubby Happle himself) will have to be able to hit Trevion Thomas with authority and prevent him from bouncing off tackles like he did two weeks ago.
And the Utes will definitely find those big tight ends in space again, and all we can hope is that Jamal and Bassa (and maybe even coverage KT) can cause just a little bit more havoc and minimize their overall impact this time around.
Oh, also please don’t punt to that Covey man again.
This is for the Roses folks.
34-27. Back-to-Back-to-Back.
Go Ducks.