By LLOYD PASEMAN/For The Herald — Asked after the game what he said to Oregon’s players during halftime Wednesday night, interim head coach Bryan McClendon told reporters, “The only thing I said to those guys were ‘Hey, man, we’ve come too far to really let a bad [first] half kind of define us. At the end of the day there is no one play that you can run that can get you out of a 30-3 deficit. The only thing we can do is go out there and fight our ass off one play at a time, and go out there and keep doing it, keep doing it, keep doing it.’”
And so they did.
Oregon outscored Oklahoma 29-17 in the second half in San Antonio but it wasn’t enough to overcome a first half performance that looked distressingly like the way the Ducks played against eventual Pac-12 conference champion Utah on November 20th and December 3rd, when they lost 38-7 and 38-10.
It was the eighth time Oregon had played Oklahoma and the Ducks’ seventh loss to the Sooners. Their lone win came in the two teams’ last meeting in 2006, when Oregon scored two late TDs to win 34-33 at Autzen Stadium in a game that was marred by a controversial onside kick recovery that led to Oregon taking the lead. The Ducks then blocked an Oklahoma field goal on the final play.
Before that, the Sooners beat the Ducks in the 2005 Holiday Bowl in San Diego and during the regular season in 2004, 1975, 1972, 1966 and 1958.
Oregon is 15-20 all-time in bowl games. Last year, the Ducks lost to another Big 12 school, Iowa State, 34-17, in the Fiesta Bowl.
The Alamo Bowl loss ended a rollercoaster season that saw Oregon ranked No. 3 in the nation after defeating mighty Ohio State 35-28 on their home field in Columbus, only to end the season ranked 14th by the College Football Playoff selection committee after the double losses to Utah.
There was much talk during the first four weeks of the season about the Ducks’ possibility of making it into the four-team national championship playoff, but that talk was never realistic, as was borne out by the results of games played over the final 10 weeks.
Part of the reason for that was a long list of player injuries, transfers and opt-outs that cost the Ducks fully one-third of their players going into Wednesday’s game.
The losses included starting RB CJ Verdell (injury); WRs Johnny Johnson III (injury), Jaylon Redd (injury), Mycah Pittman (transfer) and Devon Williams (NFL draft); All-American defensive end Kayvon Thibodeaux (injury and NFL draft); cornerbacks DJ James (transfer), Mykael Wright (NFL draft), and a couple dozen others, mostly offensive linemen and defenders.
On top of that, three days after losing the conference championship game to Utah in Las Vegas, Mario Cristobal announced he was leaving after four years as head coach to take the head coaching job at the University of Miami.
Three of the Ducks’ four losses came in the final six weeks of the season. It was a rocky end to a promising but ultimately rocky year, the difficulty of which isn’t reflected in the Ducks’ final 10-4 record.
The Good
The third quarter
Trailing 30-3 at halftime, the Ducks went on a scoring frenzy in the third quarter. They ran only 24 plays—one more than they’d run during their scoreless second quarter—but they more than doubled their total yards gained, to 237 from 102 in the previous quarter.
They found the end zone on four consecutive drives covering 23 minutes of the second half. The 22 points scored in the third quarter were a season high and the most by an Oregon team since the Nov. 14, 2020, game against Washington State.
Senior QB Anthony Brown was eight for 12 passing for 155 yards and two TDs in the third quarter while Junior RB Travis Dye picked up 98 of the Ducks’ 205 yards of total offense, including 74 of their 90 yards rushing.
Although they scored only a field goal in the fourth quarter to Oregon’s seven points, the Sooners dominated the quarter, possessing the ball for nearly 12 and a half of the 15 minutes.
Junior RB Travis Dye
Dye, who stepped up to replace starting RB CJ Verdell when Verdell suffered a season-ending leg injury in the Oct. 2 game at Stanford, ended up having a banner year.
He became the fifth player in Oregon history to surpass 3,000 career rushing yards with 3,111, trailing only Royce Freeman (5,621), LaMichael James (5,082), Kenjon Barner (3,623) and Derek Loville (3,296).
He moved into a tie for seventh place on Oregon’s single-season rushing TDs list with 16, matching Freeman’s 2017 season.
He moved into ninth place in career all-purpose yards at Oregon with 4,337, passing Terrence Whitehead (4,335 yards).
He finished the season with a career-high 1,271 rushing yards, good for tenth place on Oregon’s list of single-season rushing yards.
And he became the first Duck to lead the team in both rushing yards (1,271) and receptions (45) in a season since Sean Burwell in 1992.
On Wednesday he rushed for 153 yards and a TD on 18 carries while catching five passes for 28 yards. It was one of his best—and most fiercely played—games this season.
Like all players who would have completed their college eligibility this season before the NCAA authorized an extra year of eligibility because of the COVID-19-shortened 2020 season, Dye will be automatically eligible for the 2022 NFL draft. He has until February 4 to decide whether he wants to play another season for Oregon.
Sophomore punter Tom Snee
The Ducks had the ball with fourth and 15 on their own two-yard line with just over three minutes left in the game when Snee uncorked a booming career-record 65-yard punt—almost 75 if the end zone were counted—that went out of bounds at the Oklahoma 33-yard line. But the Sooners were up 47-32 at that point and wrapped up the game with six straight rushing plays.
Snee, who is from Australia, punted 44 times in 2021 for an impressive 1,897 yards, an average of 43 yards per punt.
Sophomore kicker Camden Lewis
Lewis was perfect on three PATs and kicked a 24-yard FG with about two minutes left in the first quarter for Oregon’s first score. It was his 13th field goal on 16 attempts in 2021 (81 percent), the longest of which was 49 yards.
Freshman linebacker Noah Sewell
Sewell, who had eight tackles, ended the year with a top-ranked 114 tackles, the most by an Oregon player since Patrick Chung’s 117 in 2007. He left the game in the third quarter to be assessed for concussion symptoms and didn’t return to the game. After the game, McClendon told reporters he didn’t believe any of the Duck injuries experienced Wednesday “will keep those guys out of a good off-season.”
The young receivers
Given the absences of veteran WRs Johnson, Redd, Pittman and Williams, Wednesday’s combined performance by the first- and second-year receivers who replaced them was just short of spectacular: 20 catches for 270 yards.
Freshman WR Dont’e Thornton had four catches for 90 yards and a video-highlight-worthy 66-yard TD on a pass from Brown about halfway through the third quarter that matched the Ducks’ longest passing play of the season. Freshman WR Kris Hutson had six catches for 55 yards and a TD. Redshirt freshman WR Troy Franklin had four catches for 65 yards and a TD. Sophomore WR Isaah Crocker had three catches for 40 yards. Freshman TE Terrance Ferguson had one catch for eight yards, and sophomore TE Spencer Webb and freshman WR Isaiah Brevard each had one catch for six yards (a career first for Brevard).
The Good and the Bad
Senior QB Anthony Brown
As had been the case through most of the 2021 season, Brown’s performance on the field Wednesday was uneven. He completed 27-of-40 passes for 306 yards—one yard short of his season high against Colorado—and three TDs.
He went into the game leading the Pac-12 in total offense and finished the year with 3,647 yards (2,989 passing and 658 rushing). His rushing yards were the sixth-most ever by an Oregon quarterback in a season.
And, often criticized by fans and some sportswriters for attempting too few deep passes during the season, he threw several against Oklahoma, including the 66-yard third quarter TD pass to WR Dont’e Thornton.
But, as in previous games, he also apparently didn’t see some of his open receivers. He overthrew or underthrew the ball on most of his 13 incomplete passes (a pass to Franklin in the first quarter was slightly behind the receiver and bounced into a Sooner player’s hand for the only interception of the game). In many cases, it looked like he held onto the ball too long until he was forced out of the pocket by pursuing Oklahoma defenders.
Also typical of some earlier games, on several running plays he kept the ball and lost yardage (a total of 18 yards Wednesday) when he should have pitched it to Dye or another player who was in the open.
The Oregonian sports reporter James Crepea addressed fan complaints about Brown’s performance in a lengthy piece published several days before the Alamo Bowl game.
Crepea described the sixth-year transfer from Boston College as “an unlikely polarizing figure. A lightning rod for criticism from a fan base accustomed to more explosive signal-callers. That’s somehow all been lost in a chorus of rage among fans over Brown’s lack of deep throws. Peruse any social media platform and you’ll quickly find a visceral cesspool of negativity directed at Brown, including those wishing the 23-year-old would re-tear his surgically repaired anterior cruciate ligaments or worse.”
But offensive coordinator, Joe Moorhead, who is now gone to serve as head coach at Akron, told Crepea, “We’re not in a position to be where we are or do what we did this season without Anthony Brown….I’m proud to have been his coach.”
And teammate Dye said, “You’ve got a lot of keyboard warriors out there, and they really don’t know what they’re talking about.”
On Wednesday, Crepea noted that Brown left the third game of the season, against Stony Brook, at halftime “after being sacked on back-to-back plays and appearing to favor his neck. He hurt his left wrist on the goal-line fumble against Washington State on Nov. 13. A week later, Brown was bent back awkwardly in the loss at Utah…. In the Pac-12 championship game 13 days later, his right ankle was taped.”
Brown was asked about his injuries during a post-game meeting with reporters and said, “There’s a difference between being hurt and being injured. Was I playing on that borderline? Probably. But for them [his Duck teammates], I’d give my body up.”
The Bad
Junior RB Kennedy Brooks
The Sooners racked up 318 yards rushing (and 560 yards of total offense) against the Ducks as redshirt junior RB Kennedy Brooks and his two backup runners ran roughshod over Oregon’s depleted defense.
Brooks, who entered the game averaging seven yards per carry for his career, gained 127 yards and scored two TDs on 10 carries just in the first half, and finished with 142 rushing yards and three TDs on 14 carries.
The Sooners had to punt only twice and at one point, scored on eight straight possessions.
Freshman QB Caleb Williams
Williams was 21 of 27 passing for 242 yards and three TDs against the Ducks. He took over the starting QB job during the Sooners’ 55-48 win over Texas on Oct. 9, permanently replacing starter Spencer Rattler, who had entered the season as a Heisman Trophy favorite. Rattler later transferred to South Carolina.
The Weird
A 51-yard touchdown reception by Oklahoma freshman WR Mario Williams early in the second quarter was called back by officials after Williams’ helmet was ripped off in a face mask penalty called against Duck freshman cornerback Avante Dickerson. Williams continued into the end zone without his helmet but the rules say a player whose helmet is taken off isn’t allowed to advance the ball, so it was brought back to the Oregon 18-yard line. Four plays later, Oklahoma kicked a field goal to make the score 9-3.
And, finally…
If you’ve not yet had enough Duck football to think about, give some thought to the upcoming 2022 season, which opens Sept. 3 in Atlanta with a game against Georgia, currently ranked No. 3 in the nation, which is meeting No. 2 Michigan Saturday in one of two national championship games. The other pits No. 1 Alabama against No. 4 Cincinnati. Both games will be telecast on ESPN, with Alabama-Cincinnati at 12:30 p.m. and Georgia-Michigan at 4:30 p.m. The national championship game will be Jan. 10 at 5 p.m. on ESPN.
Oregon’s new head coach, Dan Lanning, is Georgia’s defensive coordinator.
Oregon’s 2022 schedule
Sept. 3: Georgia @ Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta
Sept. 10: Eastern Washington @ Autzen Stadium
Sept. 17: BYU @ Autzen Stadium
Sept. 24: Washington State @ Martin Stadium, Pullman
Oct. 1: Stanford @ Autzen Stadium
Oct. 8: Arizona @ Arizona Stadium, Tucson
Oct. 15: Bye
Oct. 22: UCLA @ Autzen Stadium
Oct. 29: California @ California Memorial Stadium, Berkeley
Nov. 5: Colorado @ Folsom Field, Boulder
Nov. 12: Washington @ Autzen Stadium
Nov. 19: Utah @ Autzen Stadium
Nov. 25: Oregon State @ Reser Stadium, Corvallis
Lloyd Paseman is a graduate of Crow High School and the University of Oregon. He was an all-state B League quarterback in his senior year in high school when his team, the Cougars, finished 6-1 on the season. He’s lived all but two years of his life in Lane County, with two years out for U.S. Army service, and retired from The Register-Guard as a local news editor after nearly 40 years. Paseman’s analysis is provided as a service for the many Duck fans in Highway 58 communities who can no longer find such expert commentary in their local print newspapers.
George Custer lives in Oakridge with his wife Sayre. George is a former smokejumper from his hometown of Cave Junction, a former captain in the U.S. Marine Corps. and ran a construction company in Southern California. George assumed the volunteer duties as the Editor of the Highway 58 Herald in 2022. He loves riding his Harley-Davidson motorcycle, building all things wood, and playing drums on the weekends in his office.
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