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 6 hours ago6 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.

1 hour ago, Santa Rosa Duck said:

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.

2026 - OBD is at USC and Ohio State. 2028 - USC in Autzen.

1 hour ago, Drake said:

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.

Drake, I liked the comment. However, with all of the BS thrown OBD's way regarding the schedule, I like the finish. OBD was the 2025 Hive Mind scheduling whipping boy.

I think the schedule worked out to OBD's advantage with a home win over an SC team that I believe will remain in the committee's top 25 on Tuesday and a finish at UW with the chance to put up more points than Ohio State in Seattle.

Thanks, David, for another terrific Monday morning article.

The only downside, I'm craving a kava! 🙃

1 hour 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.

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.

UW is being given too much credit for playing well at home and for "blowing out" UCLA. The UCLA message boards are pretty unanimous that UCLA played a really poor game regardless of opponent.

If you can still get 6.5 it's the deal of the weekend if not the season. I've said before that we can easily play the style of the teams that gave UW the most trouble, and do it way better than those teams.

And we have the longest road winning streak in the country by a mile, playing better on the road than we have at home this season.

-6.5 is a gift.

Edited 3 hours ago3 hr by Solar

1 hour ago, Drake said:

However, schedulers did us no favors this year. Back to back rival type games to finish the season.

The B1G schedulers have the four West Coast teams playing one another to finish the last two weeks of the season.

Last week:

USC at Oregon

Washington at UCLA

Next week:

Oregon at Washington

UCLA at USC

I would personally rather play our former PAC-10 opponents than travel to the Midwest or Northeast in mid to late November.

🤣🤣🤣- Now, now, Lincoln.

https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/usc-football-lincoln-riley-temper-oregon-loss-cfp/?eid=c7d8647c6247db8d08c59fe44bc30380a147aa90b9e33099045cd46ddc6a485b&ftag=SNL-04-10aaa0b&ET_CID=492450&ET_RID=52482716

38 minutes ago, Jon Joseph said:

🤣🤣🤣- Now, now, Lincoln.

https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/usc-football-lincoln-riley-temper-oregon-loss-cfp/?eid=c7d8647c6247db8d08c59fe44bc30380a147aa90b9e33099045cd46ddc6a485b&ftag=SNL-04-10aaa0b&ET_CID=492450&ET_RID=52482716

Yeah, that was a dumb question.

I don't blame him for being salty. Having a good year and now out of the playoffs with the loss.

I agree with Josh Pate's take on the USC / Riley situation: "I totally understand if USC fans are frustrated and want him gone. He's made wholesale changes this year that are right for the program, but are changes that should have happened 3 years ago. That said, those changes will finally have payoff next year and the year after. If you don't want to wait 2-3 more years, I get it, but if you do, you might finally see USC where they ought to be."

** quotations above don't mean word for word, but basically what Pate said.

With USC's #1 2026 recruiting class--I know it's ranked that high because of sheer volume--but that's where you have to start to build depth, and that could set USC on track.

My preference is not to poke the USC bear. All they need is a Mari Cristbal or Lanning-type recruiter to make recruiting life difficult for the Ducks.

That said, my sign would have said, "Extend Lincoln Riley, or re-hire Clay Helton!"

2 hours ago, Jon Joseph said:

Thanks, David, for another terrific Monday morning article.

The only downside, I'm craving a kava! 🙃

Ha!

When that back link order came in, I had no idea what it was, and in many respects, I still don’t, and it may be of dubious ingredients. But it helps to pay the bills…