Romping Ducks: The overview

Things went pretty much as expected, in the final analysis last night in Eugene.  It was obviously an easy win for Oregon, but not nearly as bad as some of BG's previous P5 games in the Jinks era.  Oregon is just much better than BG and that's fine.  There were a couple positive elements that might point to BG being able to compete in MAC play.

The game started off very well for BG, although it was a little deceiving.  BG got "stops" on Oregon's first two possessions, but those stops consisted of wide-open Oregon receivers dropping passes.  Meanwhile, BG did move the ball, and was up 10-0 with 5 minutes left in the first quarter.

On first down Herbert misdirected the BG defense and ran for 37 yards to put Oregon into scoring position.  BG strung together 3 good plays for force a 4th and 14 at the BG 33.  The Ducks went for it and threw a TD pass on the 4th down play.  That's a big conversion for them and a painful one for us and that sort of opened the gates.

BG's offense responded and moved down to the Duck 32 where they had their own 4th and 2 and BG went for it and didn't get it.  Oregon was clicking now on offense and had a 3rd and 2 on the BG 24 when the Falcons actually did get the stop and appeared to have forced a FG but then the Falcons were hit with an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for something like "not obeying a referee's instruction on a uniform issue."  They called Clint Stephens' number.  No idea what was behind that.

Anyway, Oregon converted that into another TD.

In BG's next possession Doege was stripped on 3rd down and that led to another Oregon touchdown and a 21-10 lead.

Coach said after the game that the offense needs to respond in situations like this--which tells you what kind of team we are going to have.  The offense needs to get down the field and eat some clock.  Which they did not do, making one first down.  Then, BG's punter, making his first collegiate punt, shanked a 12-yard punt.  Two plays later it was 28-10.

BG started at their 11 off a penalty on the kick return, Doege was sacked back to the BG 3, BG went 3 and out and then snapped the ball over Timmerman's Tinnerman's (we regret the error) head on the punt for a safety and it was 30-10 and essentially, the issue was decided.  At this point, there was 5:42 left in the 2Q.

For good measure, Oregon took the free kick and scored again and then the Falcons did begin to generate offense again and it was 37-17 at halftime.

Then, BG came out and threw a pick 6 on the 3rd play, were sacked on 3rd and 3, punted Oregon to the 13 yard line and Ducks threw an 83 yard completion on their second play, making the game 54-17 with 9 minutes to play in the third.

As Coach said afterward, hard to have a worse start to a half than that.  BG didn't quit, to their credit, and in fact Oregon didn't score again, though you have to think they pretty much could have named the score they wanted to see.

In his presser, Coach came in jacked up.  You can tell by the speed he was talking at.  He was agitated.  He said what you have to say, which is that the team just has to get better, made way too many mistakes and as good as Oregon is, BG has "a long way to go on both sides of the ball."

More to come.