Oregon Football lost their second straight road game on Saturday night at Arizona 44-15 falling out of the National Rankings in the process.
The game started very similar to the game last week against Washington State. The Oregon Offense appeared to have no real sense of what they were doing – that or Arizona was much better at countering their moves. One that Oregon tried most of the night was Justin Herbert throwing to Dillon Mitchell, who appeared to be the only Oregon Wide Receiver available on the field for most of the night. Oregon cannot win games like this.
The Oregon Football Defense has done a decent job so far this season, but throughout the game lost their fourth regular player. LaMar Winston Jr was suspended for breaking team rules for the first half. The Ducks had 71 total plays and 48 of them were passes from Quarterback Justin Herbert.
Arizona made Oregon one-dimensional by shutting down the rushing attack. Oregon rushed for 78 yards in the game against the Wildcats. If you take out the 31 yards by Quarterback Justin Herbert, the Jim Mastro led Oregon Run Game put up just 57 yards on the ground. If there is one reason to point to that is the Offensive struggle, that is it.
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In being one-dimensional on Offense, anyone just needs to stop the rushing attack and focus on Herbert and the passing game. Saturday saw the Ducks go 3 for 16 on 3rd Down. It is safe to say that a majority of those missed passes were in the direction of Wide Receiver Dillon Mitchell who finished the game with 6 catches for 69 yards.
There was no innovation, there was no ‘a-ha’ play on Offense, there was no spark from anyone on the team. Oregon was outscored 21-7 in the second haf and did not put up a point in the first or fourth quarters.
The best part is the game was not Justin Hebert’s fault. This one falls on the coaching staff, more specifically Marcus Arroyo who needs to figure out how to play call to his Quarterbacks benefit. Going 50 percent on completions and having two rough outings does not make a Heisman worthy Signal Caller.
While Oregon has now slipped out of the spotlight for the rest of the season, and the rankings with back to back losses, the wins now will not be for a chance a the College Football Playoff or a New Years Day Bowl, but for part pride and part momentum leading into the 2019 season.
Oregon returns home to face former Coach Chip Kelly and the UCLA Bruins(by the way, UCLA beat Arizona two weeks ago.) The Ducks and Bruins kickoff Saturday at 4:30 pm Pacific Time on FOX.