Pylon Cams Please: Wazzu Game Review
The first three plays of the game summed up the whole night pretty perfectly.
The Duckies started fast, weathered some wild momentum shifts, and ultimately buried the Washington State Cougars under a mountain of their own gold.
On Wazzu’s second play from scrimmage, Jayden de Laura connected on an apparent 77-yard touchdown bomb to Calvin Jackson.
I wouldn’t say that the big play took the air out of Autzen, per se, but we were sure buckling ourselves up for a Coug fight.
But then, after further review—a phrase I am way past loathing at this point—it seemed that Jackson had actually inexplicably stepped out at the seven yard line, calling the touchdown back to there.
The Oregon crowd cheered, but it basically seemed like a formality. Surely the Cougs are just gonna score from there, right?
Let’s just say that it’s a good thing Jamal Hill doesn’t believe in formalities in football.
Because on the very next play, Hill knocked the ball out of de Laura’s scrambling hands, forcing him to fumble out the back of the end zone. Touchback. Duck ball.
And that was basically the whole night in a nutshell.
Gigantic momentum swings. A few lapses on Oregon’s part. Key turnovers. Referee involvement. But then all of that runaround just ended with the Ducks on top after all.
For all the very weird things that happened in this game that made the score look closer than it actually was, this was genuinely a perfectly fine beatdown of the third or fourth best team in the Pac-12.
The Oregonian’s Ken Goe didn’t like it because it doesn’t look like Chip Kelly, but Mario’s relentless pursuit of the trenches won out once again as the Ducks pounded 306 yards on the ground, and allowed a mere 91 yards rushing in return from WSU.
Also, Max Borghi finally didn’t friggin’ score on us. That’s a win all by itself.
AB completed 77% of his passes and threw one touchdown and zero interceptions, but he was truly called upon to lead the Oregon ground game.
17 carries, 123 yards, and one acrobatic touchdown later (and another one that was stolen from him simply due to a lack of cameras), Anthony Brown was everything the Ducks needed and then some.
He’s a freak athlete, a fierce competitor, a consummate leader, and the quarterback of a 9-1 football team that is now one win away from clinching the Pac-12 North.
Travis Dye had himself a night with 88 yards rushing and two total touchdowns—that’s 10 total scores in the last four games, for the folks keeping count at home.
But the real takeaway from this game was yet another stellar performance from Byron Cardwell. The young buck had 98 yards and two rushing touchdowns himself—genuinely living up to that number 21 Oregon jersey he has been wearing around.
When CJ went down, we knew someone would have to carve out that RB2 slot for themselves, and Cutback Cardwell has done just that.
The ideal recipe for this defense from Tim DeRuyter was always a two-step deal. 1) Lean on your otherworldly defensive line to create mass amounts of pressure and force mistakes, and then 2) take advantage of those mistakes.
KT notched two sacks, Dorlus and Noah batted down some passes like they always do, and Popo found two huge tackles for loss. The pressure was at full force.
And then Verone and Bryan Addison both grabbed picks in key moments, Jamal forced that ginormous fumble, and the Ducks were back to their old winning ways in the turnover battle.
I’m going to repeat what I said last week, and what I anticipate I’ll be saying the rest of the way here:
Oregon is running the ball at a championship level, and they’re playing defense at a championship level, too.
They will make mistakes, they will bend, but they don’t flinch. They fight back.
It’s how they beat Ohio State, and it’s how they’ve won eight other games on top of that.
Ken Goe can go behind a paywall and gripe about whether or not it looks sexy, but that won’t change Mario Cristobal’s mind one bit.
It’s time to be honest with ourselves:Â
This isn’t the same Oregon team that put the whole nation on notice in Columbus two months ago.
This team is better.
Go Ducks.
Obviously Ken Goe stopped watching at halftime.