This season has been a bit of a downer, even though the Ducks are 10-1 and on the verge of a College Football Playoff bid. We got a massive win over Penn State just for it to be forgotten as Penn State took one of the biggest nosedives in recent college football history. The following game, the Ducks laid an ...

Oregon vs. USC was the Game this Season Needed

Edited 3 hours ago3 hr by Smith72
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I agree with so much of what you wrote David, and not much has been made of how well Oregon rushed with 60% of the offensive line starters out for most of the game!

David, great article. This game had a different feel and meaning than all the rest of this seasons games. And the game against the huskies will have even more meaning and feelings.

Watching OBD's dominate the LOS against the sneak around your back, stab you in the back, self righteous, self entitled, spoiled children of Troy can only be topped this weekend!

For this fan, those that shall not be named up North, the ultimate rivalry is beating the leg lifters. Beating them never gets old.

Beating the Trojans raised are national awareness but it is wasted without beating the leg-lifting dogs.

Go Ducks, you are playing for the Natty again this weekend......

Thanks David, it sure did feel like a rivalry game. I believe we meet again next year and that is probably at The Coliseum. I was at the 2012 game in Los Angeles and will make plans for next year as well. I do think Charley Pickard played way more than a serviceable game. Thanks for the write up.

I like that we are somewhat off the radar this season. However, schedulers did us no favors this year. Back to back rival type games to finish the season.

SUC on an uptick with playoff hopes is a solid team that you have to outscore. Immediately followed by the pups, a decent team with nothing to lose. We are battling for the CFP, and a playoff game at Autzen. They want to poop on our plate.

Oregon being nationally televised in both games shows that we are not completely under the radar.

College football at it's finest.

Oregon is favored by 6.5 against UW, while they were favored over USC by a range of 9.5 to 12.5.

I'm kind of surprised by that. I would have pegged USC as better than UW. Perhaps the UW homefield is narrowing the gap between Oregon? I also don't like facing a very mobile QB.

Hope the Ducks can finally get 90%+ healthy for this one.

@David Marsh I liked your thought about how this was a classic P12 matchup with high powered offenses that the defenses won't be able to fully shut down.

Had a similar thought during the game, that it felt like the Chip Kelly era matchups where I would root really hard for a 2 TD lead before relaxing a little bit. You knew the opponent would score some, but with a 2 TD lead, that put pressure on the other team to change their approach, and you knew the Ducks would keep scoring.

1 minute ago, WTD25 said:

Oregon is favored by 6.5 against UW, while they were favored over USC by a range of 9.5 to 12.5.

It's the injuries right now and an away game that have set that line.

Unless / until we know who is out and who will play that line will stay lower. Even though our offensive line was mostly back-ups and we ran the ball well we still ran it less efficiently than if we had our starters in. It's little things like that which takes points off the betting line.

If we get word that Poncho and World are back at full strength I would imagine that that line ticks up.

If we get word that Dakorian Moore is going to play, I imagine that again the line goes up in our favor.

1 minute ago, WTD25 said:

Had a similar thought during the game, that it felt like the Chip Kelly era matchups where I would root really hard for a 2 TD lead before relaxing a little bit. You knew the opponent would score some, but with a 2 TD lead, that put pressure on the other team to change their approach, and you knew the Ducks would keep scoring.

Absolutely!

Pac-12 football was a completely different beast than the B1G. You always knew the other team had the ability to put up points with fantastic quarterback play and skill positions. I was under no illusions that we were going to keep the Trojans under 20 points going into the game, I didn't make a formal prediction but I thought they would get 21 which is still less than what they actually scored. Oregon's defense is good but good offenses always find a way.