The Herald’s weekly Duck football commentary: CFP chances down the tube with smothering loss — Utah 38, Oregon 7

By LLOYD PASEMAN/For The Herald — Well, it finally happened. As some college football observers—including yours truly—had expected, the 9-1 Ducks finally came up against a second 2021 opponent they could not run over, nor stop, and Oregon’s hopes of returning to the national College Football Playoff crumbled into dust.

Playing before a raucous, record crowd of 52,724 people Saturday night in Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City, the No. 3 Ducks were humbled, perhaps even humiliated, by No. 23 Utah 38-7.

The victory made head coach Kyle Whittingham the winningest coach in University of Utah history with 142 wins. And it gave the Utes the Pac-12 South Division title and a trip to the Dec. 3 conference championship game in Las Vegas.

Some fans and sportswriters had claimed all along that Oregon didn’t deserve its initial No. 4 ranking, later bumped to No. 3 by the 13-member CFP selection committee, which has seemed impressed, probably overly so, by the Ducks’ surprise 35-28 Sept. 11 win over Ohio State on its home field in Columbus.

At the time, the Buckeyes were ranked No. 3 in the Associated Press college football poll and Oregon was ranked No. 12. Oregon made it to the first CFP in 2014 but lost to Ohio State in the championship game.

After this year’s win at Ohio State, the Ducks won seven of their next eight games—losing only to Stanford in overtime 31-24, at Stanford, on Oct. 2—before heading to Salt Lake City.

Three of Oregon’s games this season were walks in the park. They clobbered Stony Brook, a second-tier NCAA school, 48-7, then breezed to a 41-19 win over then-winless Arizona before riding roughshod over Colorado 52-29. Stony Brook is currently 5-6 on the season, Arizona is 1-10 and Colorado is 4-7.

Here’s how the Ducks won their other five games in addition to beating Ohio State:

They edged Fresno State 31-24 with just under three minutes left in the fourth quarter on a 30-yard run by QB Anthony Brown.

They squeezed by California 24-17 when Brown scored on an 11-yard run with just under five minutes to go in the game.

They took the lead for the final time against UCLA when RB Travis Dye scored on a one yard run with about 12 minutes to go in the game, but the Bruins cut the Ducks’ lead to 34-31 with about six and a half minutes remaining.

In Seattle, they led for good after a 31-yard TD pass to WR Devon Williams with about five minutes remaining in the first half, but in the second half the Huskies narrowed the lead to 26-16 with just over 11 minutes left in the fourth quarter.

They defeated Washington State 38-24 but saw their two-TD lead threatened in the final eight and a half minutes by a Cougar FG and then a TD in the final nine seconds.

Oregon’s average margin of victory in those five games? Slightly more than eight points per game. For all 11 games so far this season, the Ducks have outscored their opponents by an average of 8.7 points per game.

That’s not the kind of victory margin one should expect from one of the top four teams in the country.

The collective record of the teams the Ducks have beaten thus far is 49-49; if you take Ohio State out of the mix, the record is 39-48. That’s not a very strong schedule, which is one of the main criteria used by the CFP selection committee to choose the four teams that will contend for the national championship.

The semifinals will be at the Cotton Bowl and Orange Bowl on New Year’s Eve and the final in Indianapolis on Jan. 10.

Of the nine teams the Ducks beat, only four—Fresno State, Ohio State, UCLA and Washington State—are bowl-eligible, i.e., have won six or more games, with one game left in the regular season.

Reactions to Saturday’s loss:

Head Coach Mario Cristobal

“Everybody’s upset and disappointed like we should be,” Oregon coach Mario Cristobal said Saturday night. “It should burn. It should hurt a ton. Guys are competitors and it’s hard, too, because we’ve taken a lot of pride in being resilient and being able to bounce back from adversity. And tonight, we didn’t do a good enough job.
“Everybody should use that hurt as the right kind of motivation. We should be really motivated to play this next week [against Oregon State] because we got a ton to play for and by the time we wake up in the morning, this thing’s got to be behind us and we’ve got to move forward.”

ESPN staff writer David Hale

“Saturday showed us that Oregon’s September shocker at Ohio State was far less indicative of the Ducks’ ability than its loss to lowly Stanford three weeks later….That Oregon was the one team the [CFP] committee believed warranted extra consideration for its head-to-head win probably said more about the committee’s opinion of Ohio State than it did Oregon, but that metric no longer matters….More importantly, the Pac-12 can enjoy a stress-free Thanksgiving holiday without worrying about any playoff implications. It’s an annual tradition right there with mom’s cranberry sauce and the [NFL’s Detroit] Lions doing something embarrassing.”

ESPN staff writer Kyle Bonagura

“Oregon had fallen behind and played in close games throughout the season but had always found ways to respond—including in its overtime loss to Stanford, in which the Ducks trailed by 10 at halftime. Against Utah, there was none of that.”

And from some Duck fans on Twitter as the game was in progress

“Cristobal is a very good program leader. But some of the in-game decisions are brutal when Plan A doesn’t work.”
“The entire year we’ve been playing like this, not playing a full game and coming together in the 4th. Tonight, that method is biting us big time.”
“Utah is up 28-0 and Oregon is now an Adidas school.”

The Good

Freshman inside linebacker Noah Sewell

Sewell led Oregon’s defense with 10 tackles, five solo, and a spectacular 12-yard sack. It was his fourth sack this season and the sixth of his career. He’s now had five double-digit tackle performances this year.

Freshman WR Kris Hutson

He caught a career-high four passes for 96 yards, the most by an Oregon player this season, including a 50-yard catch-and-run play.

Sophomore WR Devon Williams

Williams caught five passes for 81 yards and a TD, his team-leading third receiving TD this season. He’s had 24 catches for 382 yards in the last six games.

The Bad

Senior QB Anthony Brown

Brown’s shortcomings as a QB, and Cristobal’s shortcomings as a coach, were on full display Saturday as Utah’s ability to stop the Ducks’ running game—the Utes held them to just 63 total yards rushing—forced Oregon to turn to its erratic passing game after halftime.

Going into the game, the Ducks were averaging 227 yards rushing per game, second in the Pac-12 and 10th in the nation. Meanwhile, they’d had only three passing plays of 40-plus yards in 10 games.

Brown was 17 of 35 for 231 yards and a TD passing Saturday but 50 of those yards came on one play. He was sacked three times and most of his passes were either overthrown or underthrown.

He also came into the game averaging five yards per carry rushing but netted only eight yards on nine carries Saturday.

Meanwhile, the Ducks’ three freshman backup QBs, two of whom have combined for only 18 pass attempts all season, sat on the sidelines during Saturday’s blowout.

Junior RB Travis Dye

He was the second-leading rusher in the Pac-12 coming into the game but was held to only 29 yards on six carries by Utah. Freshman Bryon Cardwell gained 35 yards on seven carries.

Still, Dye moved into eighth place on the Ducks’ all-time rushing list with 2,777 career yards, passing Sean Burwell’s 2,758 yards from 1990-93. He is now 63 yards away from his first career 1,000-yard rushing season.

Sophomore kicker Camden Lewis

Lewis, who had a perfect 10 for 10 record on FGs before Saturday, missed two against Utah. His first attempt from 36 yards with less than a minute left in the first quarter was blocked and he missed a 41-yard attempt about two minutes before halftime.

Utah’s inspired play

Preceding and during Saturday’s game, Utah players and fans paid tribute to 21-year-old defensive back Aaron Lowe, who was fatally shot at a party in Salt Lake City on Sept. 26.
Lowe was a sophomore at the university and the recipient of Utah’s Ty Jordan Memorial Scholarship, which honors Jordan, a 19-year-old tailback who died after an accidental shooting in December 2020.

The Utes were being led by fourth-year sophomore QB Cameron Rising, who was only 10 for 18 passing Saturday for 178 yards and no interceptions but his ball-handling and maneuvering were key to the Utes’ rolling up 208 net yards and four TDs rushing.
Rising replaced starting QB Charlie Brewer on Sept. 18 in the third quarter against San Diego State after seven of the 10 drives Brewer directed ended in punts, followed by an interception.

The Utes lost that game 33-31 in overtime but Rising completed 19 of 32 passes for 153 yards and three TDs, took over as starting QB after that and Utah won six of its next seven games before meeting Oregon. Brewer left the Utah program the week after the San Diego State game.

Utah also was buoyed Saturday by the play of redshirt junior WR/kickoff returner/punt returner Britain Covey who, at 5 feet 8 inches and 170 pounds, was one of the smallest players on the field. Covey, an All-American as a freshman in 2015, had two previous season-ending injuries and missed two seasons while on a two-year Mormon church mission.

He accounted for Utah’s fourth TD with a play-of-the-game 78-yard punt return on the final play of the first half when Oregon’s normally reliable Tom Snee punted the ball to the Utah 22-yard line rather than kicking it out of bounds.

Counting his two punt returns, three pass receptions and two kickoff returns, Covey accounted for 191 of Utah’s 386 total offense yards. Going into Saturday’s game, he was leading the Pac-12 in career receptions with 168. His longest punt return before Saturday was for 80 yards at San Diego State.

Utah also was helped by junior TE Brant Kuithe, who caught five passes for 118 yards, and sophomore RB Tavion Thomas, who had 21 carries for 94 yards and three TDs.

Offensive coordinator Andy Ludwig, former Oregon offensive coordinator for Mike Bellotti, called a brilliant game.

The Ugly

Britain Covey’s 78-yard punt return

The TD effectively sealed Utah’s win with a 28-0 score at halftime.

Oregon’s running game

The Ducks were unable to do what they’d done best all year and that’s run the ball. Their 294 yards of total offense—including the measly 63 yards rushing—was a season low, and their seven points tied for the fewest by a Ducks team in Cristobal’s four seasons as head coach (they beat Michigan State in the 2018 Redbox Bowl 7-6). They converted only six of 14 third-down conversion attempts and failed to convert two fourth-down attempts.

The Oregonian sports columnist John Canzano summed it up best when he wrote, “I think what we’re seeing from Oregon in this era is simply a reflection of Cristobal’s mentality. He’s a high-strung former offensive lineman who wants to run the ball, control the line of scrimmage on both offense and defense, and leave the other team relieved the game is over. He’s stubborn, focused and likes to quote from books written by Navy SEALs.”

Oregon’s defensive game

Utah rang up 386 yards of total offense, converted 11 of its 14 third-down plays and netted 208 yards rushing, the most allowed by Oregon this season. And most of Rising’s 10 pass completions came at critical moments for Utah.

The Ducks had a handful of good pass deflections but more often Rising’s receivers caught the ball while wide open in the middle of the field, surrounded by four or more Duck defenders who didn’t seem to know what to do rather than chase the receiver after the ball was caught.

Perhaps most importantly, the Utes effectively neutralized NFL-top-draft-pick-to-be defensive end Kavon Thibodeaux by double-teaming him and running their plays to the opposite side of the field Thibodeaux was defending. He ended up with five tackles and two assists.

Departures

Before the game Cristobal announced that WR seniors Johnny Johnson III and Jaylon Redd are out for the rest of the season due to injuries. The news came after sophomore WR Mycah Pittman announced that he was leaving the UO and would transfer to another school, apparently upset that he wasn’t getting enough passes and playing time.

All three players were among the team’s top five receivers. Johnson had 25 catches for 311 yards this season and Redd 13 catches for 197 yards.

Pittman had 12 catches, also for 197 yards, but his main value had been as a punt returner. He had 15 punt returns for 151 yards this season. In 2019, he missed the first four games of the season due to a broken collarbone and later that year he suffered a broken arm, causing him to miss three additional games.

Sophomore safety Verone McKinley III was injured in the final minute of the first half Saturday. He’s tied for the national lead in interceptions, with five. Cristobal said after the game, “We’re waiting on the doctors so I can’t speak on it…but I suspect that he’s OK.”

The Pac-12 puzzle

Because Oregon State defeated Arizona State 24-10 on Saturday, Oregon now needs to beat the Beavers this coming weekend to set up a rematch with Utah in the Pac-12 title game in Las Vegas on Dec. 3, with a New Year’s Day trip to the Rose Bowl at stake. Oregon is 6-2 in conference play.

But both the Beavers and the Washington State Cougars—each 5-3 in the Pac-12—are within mathematical reach of the title game.

The Beavers would get a tie for first place in the North Division with a win against the Ducks, and a WSU win over Washington in the Apple Cup on Friday would advance the Cougars to a three-way tie for first place if Oregon State beats Oregon.

If the Cougars and Beavers win their games, WSU would be the Pac-12 North winner because the Cougars would be 4-1 against North teams and Oregon and Oregon State would each be 3-2.

The Ducks defeated Utah for the 2019 Pac-12 championship 37-15, beat Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl 28-27 and finished that season 12-2. They beat USC in the championship game 31-24 in the pandemic-truncated 2020 season after Washington had to bail out of the game due to COVID-19 protocols.

College football rankings

The CFP selection committee’s next rankings will be announced at 4 p.m. Tuesday on ESPN. It will be interesting to see where Oregon lands after Saturday’s rout in Salt Lake City.

On Sunday, Ohio State jumped into the No. 2 spot—bumping Alabama to No. 3—and Oregon dropped to No. 11 in the AP poll, with Georgia No. 1 and Cincinnati No. 4. The USA Today coaches’ poll has Georgia and Alabama Nos. 1 and 2 and Ohio State and Cincinnati Nos. 3 and 4, with Oregon No. 11.

Ohio State pummeled No. 7 Michigan State 56-7 on Saturday while Alabama squeaked by No. 25 Arkansas 42-35, prompting the Buckeyes’ No. 2 ranking in the AP poll.

Next up

The 9-2 Ducks take on the 7-4 Beavers at Autzen Stadium on Saturday at 12:30 p.m. The game will be telecast on ESPN. Oregon lost to Oregon State last season for the first time since 2016 but the Ducks haven’t lost at home to the Beavers since 2007.

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.