Oregon Football hasn’t played their best football over the last two weeks, but they’re going to have to if they want to beat Utah and win the Pac-12 for the first time since 2014.
The Pac-12 Championship Game will be played at 5 PM this Friday. If you can manage to make it through rush hour traffic in time for kickoff, you’ll catch Oregon football face off against Playoff-hopeful, sixth-ranked Utah.
Utah has been more consistent than Oregon on both sides of the ball throughout the year. The Utes have the 6th ranked SP+ Defense, and the 10th-ranked Offense. They’ve dominated most of the teams that they were supposed to, and they pass the eye-test.
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Utah is undoubtedly scary, but they haven’t played anybody.
Their grueling preseason gauntlet included the Holy War with BYU, FCS Idaho State, and G5 Northern Illinois.
Utah has yet to measure themselves up against high-level competition like Oregon did against Auburn. It is hard to accurately say whether they are legit. Their one loss also came to the best team they’ve played to date, twenty-second-ranked USC—who Oregon beat by 32.
I think it is fair to question that aspect of their resume.
With that being said, I think Utah deserves to be on the Playoff bubble. Until they don’t.
Oregon football has struggled over the last couple weeks, but if the “Gang Green 2.0” Defense can lock down Utah somehow, then the Ducks might just have a chance.
Utah’s defense has (rightfully) been getting a ton of attention in their national narrative, but I think they’re at their most dangerous when the Offense gets rolling.
Ute running back Zach Moss is the Pac-12 leading rusher with 1,246 yds. He has been an incredible asset for Utah throughout his career, and he is as bruising as he is explosive.
Oregon’s run defense has been able to bend, but not break, throughout the year, but Moss is unlike any back they’ve faced. If they can contain Moss to under ~120 yds, the Ducks might have a chance.
But then you have to deal with Tyler Huntley.
Utah’s QB, Tyler Huntley, has the second-highest completion percentage in the country (75.5), and is third in yards per attempt (11.1). He has been one of the most productive signal callers on a legitimate contender that almost nobody is talking about.
Oregon’s Defense got off easy last week by not having to face OSU’s Jake Luton, but they won’t be so lucky on Friday.
Jayden Daniels and Arizona State attacked Oregon with deep passes that the secondary hadn’t prepared for. Huntley and the Utes have shown that they’re capable of exploiting teams with the passing game all year.
Huntley’s arm might be able to take the new national audience by surprise, but I can’t imagine that it’ll shock the Ducks.
The secondary can expect Huntley to go long all they want, but they’ll still have to stop it. If they can manage to keep Huntley from getting hot, the Ducks might have a chance.
I know that Oregon’s persistent issue has been on the offensive side of the ball, and I know that I would have to be crazy to say: “I think Herbie and the boys will start to get it rolling against the best defense in the conference.”
But you know what, I think Herbie and the boys might just start to get it rolling against the best defense in the conference.
We’ve seen it over and over again in the biggest games all year.
Washington. Washington State. USC. The last seven minutes against ASU.
They may play down to their competition a little bit, but the offense shows up when they need to. Herbie is hungry, and there’s no underestimating a team like Utah.
If the same Ducks team we saw against ASU and OSU shows up on Friday, they will lose. No doubt about that.
But if we see the same rugged, throat-stomping, hyper-resilient death squad that we saw against USC and Washington and the last minute of Wazzu, then Oregon football will be smelling Roses.
31-21, Ducks.
Go Ducks.