The Herald’s weekly Duck football commentary: A display of tough resiliency — Oregon 34, UCLA 31

By LLOYD PASEMAN/For The Herald — Seventh-ranked Oregon won its fourth squeaker game of the 2021 season Saturday, defeating former Duck head coach Chip Kelly’s UCLA Bruins by three points at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. It was another down-to-the-wire victory with the outcome still in doubt with less than a minute to play in the game.

The Ducks are now 6-1 on the season, having lost only to Stanford on Oct. 2 31-24—in overtime. Their signature win so far was over No. 3-ranked Ohio State on Sept. 11, whom they defeated 35-28 in Columbus.

Oregon’s only comfortable wins so far this season have been against winless Arizona, in Eugene on Sept. 25, when they breezed to a 41-19 snoozer, and against New York-based Stony Brook University, a member of the NCAA’s second-tier Football Championship Subdivision, on Sept. 18, also in Eugene.

The Stony Brook score was 48-7 but the Ducks were leading only 17-7 at halftime.

Saturday’s victory over UCLA was Oregon’s ninth win in the two teams’ last 10 meetings, dating back to 2008. And it was their third win in three meetings with Kelly as the Bruins’ coach: Oregon won 38-35 last year and 45-21 in 2018, Kelly’s first year at UCLA, with both of those games in Eugene.

Kelly was hired late in the 2017 season when the Bruins’ head coach was fired; UCLA went 3-9 that season, their worst record in 46 years. Kelly is now 15-24 at UCLA after compiling a 46-7 record at Oregon in his four seasons here.

During his post-game meeting with reporters, Kelly said—three times—that the Bruins played well but just came up “short,” noting at one point, “Football is not a game of perfect, but it is a game of resiliency,” which the up-and-down Ducks certainly proved on Saturday.

The Good

Junior RB Travis Dye

Although offensive coordinator Joe Moorhead flip-flopped the ratio of running plays to passing plays on Saturday—Oregon attempted 39 passes to only 24 running plays—all five of its TDs came on rushes: four by Dye and one by QB Anthony Brown.

Dye’s scores came on four consecutive carries, which set a record for Football Bowl Subdivision teams. He is now one of just four UO players since 2000 to run for four TDs in a game. The others are Kenjon Barner, Royce Freeman and teammate CJ Verdell, who is out for the season with a lower leg injury suffered in the Oct. 2 overtime loss to Stanford.

Dye didn’t pick up a lot of yardage on Saturday—only 35 yards on 14 carries, plus four pass receptions for another 36 yards—but it brought his career total to 3,058 yards. That puts him fifth on the UO’s career rushing list, ahead of Jonathan Stewart and behind Derek Loville’s 3,296 yards, with another year of eligibility to go.

Sophomore defensive end Kayvon Thibodeaux

Thibodeaux played his first complete game of the season Saturday. He injured his left ankle in the first quarter of the first game, against Fresno State, and missed two games before rejoining the team and getting a half-game suspension for a targeting call against Stanford.

Against UCLA he had nine tackles (eight solo), two sacks and four-and-a-half tackles for a loss in addition to a QB hurry and a forced fumble. His left ankle was heavily taped for the game but it didn’t seem to inhibit his defense, although he could be seen limping slightly in between plays several times.

He now has 16 career sacks and 31 tackles-for-a-loss in his career.

Sophomore cornerback DJ James

James made two interceptions Saturday, his first, including one on UCLA’s final possession with less a minute left in the game to seal Oregon’s narrow victory. He also had eight tackles, including six solo stops.

The Good and the Bad

Senior QB Anthony Brown

Brown has been much-maligned this season for his shortcomings as a passer but he showed noticeable improvement as Moorhead called for more passing plays against the Bruins, who were giving up an average of 290 passing yards per game going into the game, which ranked them 122nd in the nation in pass defense.

He was 20 of 39 passing for 296 yards and was also the Duck’s leading rusher with six carries for 85 yards, including a 43-yard TD in the fourth quarter. It was the first time in his college football career that he had thrown for more than 250 yards and rushed for more than 50 yards in a game. And he was a perfect 10 for 10 for 105 yards in the third quarter.

But Brown also threw two interceptions, including underthrowing a receiver in the end zone in the fourth quarter for his second interception that set up UCLA’s final TD. Several other passes were badly underthrown or overthrown, and while he did make a couple of long on-the-mark throws that were spectacularly batted away by UCLA defenders, his ability to effectively throw the long ball remains in question. On Saturday, his longest passing gain was for 32 yards to sophomore WR Devon Williams.

Head coach Mario Cristobal continues to laud his sixth-year senior, saying after the game that Brown “made some unbelievable throws . . . there was a lot of positive progress in the passing game.”

Sophomore kicker Camden Lewis

Lewis, who was perfect on PATs this season, missed his first one in the third quarter but made the other four attempts. He’s now 30 for 31, or 97 percent.

The Better

The Duck defense

Going into Saturday’s game, the Ducks were allowing 408 yards per game, which ranked them 89th in the country on defense.

Kelly’s trademark up-tempo offense caught the Duck defenders off guard a few times, and the Bruins scored two consecutive TDs on back-to-back drives in the first quarter. But the Duck defense tightened down the screws in the second half.

UCLA was averaging 220 rushing yards per game but Oregon held the Bruins to a season-low 110 yards—93 of them in the first half—as Pac-12 rushing leader RB Zach Charbonnet, who was averaging almost 100 yards per game, gained only 35 yards on 13 carries.

Also, Bruins QB Dorian Thompson-Robinson, who was completing 61 percent of his passes going into Saturday’s contest, finished the game 22 of 40, for a 55 percent completion rate.

(six solo), three assists and one sack. It was the fourth time this year Sewell has at least finished tied for the team lead in tackles, all in the past five games. He leads the team for the season with 63 tackles.

The Duck offense

Four of the Ducks’ six wins this season have been by a TD or less. As they did in their previous two games, they failed to score a TD in the first quarter against UCLA.

Part of the problem has been injuries: The team played Saturday with only three of the five offensive linemen who started the season. And part of it might be attributable to disruption in the offensive coordinator’s position.

Moorhead missed the Stanford game due to unspecified emergency surgery and returned to call the Ducks’ offensive plays against California and UCLA while recovering from his surgery, but from a position high in the coaches’ box instead of on the field, which he prefers.

Saturday’s shift to a more passing-dominant game was very noticeable but reassuring, indicating possibly that Cristobal’s dogged insistence that Oregon be primarily a running team may be softening.

It was good news for receivers, too. Eleven different players caught a pass Saturday, marking the third game this year in which at least 10 different Ducks have had a pass reception.

Sophomore Mycah Pittman, an energetic WR who has been injured but also underused when he has been available, hauled in a career-high five receptions Saturday for 46 yards. He has four receptions of more than 25 yards on the year, including 26 yards against the Bruins.

Meanwhile, senior WR Johnny Johnson III caught four passes for 45 yards to move into 11th place on Oregon’s career receptions list with 132 yards, passing Bobby Moore.

Penalties

The Ducks, who were averaging 10 penalties per game for 77 yards before Saturday, committed nine offenses for a loss of 57 yards. In 2019 and 2020 they averaged only six penalties per game for 62 and 51 yards, respectively.

Clearly, more work needs to be done to make Oregon a more disciplined team, a fact that Cristobal has acknowledged a number of times.

The Bad

Were the Ducks starting to run down the clock in the fourth quarter with six minutes to go, to protect a three-point lead? It sure looked like it. The offense suddenly slowed to a snail’s pace with Brown calling several times for the ball to be snapped just seconds ahead of a delay of game penalty. The net effect was that after a Brown pass was intercepted, UCLA got a full three minutes in which to try to win the game or score a game-tying FG. The slowdown may not have been intentional but to me it looked like gutless football that seriously risked losing the game.

The Unfortunate

ABC-TV’s early coverage

Duck fans relying on ABC-TV’s coverage of the game missed almost all of the first quarter because the network also was covering the earlier Penn State-Illinois game, which required a record nine OTs before Illinois topped the Nittany Lions 21-19. It was the first game of note to need to use the NCAA’s new rule requiring teams to make single two-point conversion attempts after a third regular OT period. Those who had access to the ESPN app were able to watch the first quarter of the UO-UCLA game on the app.

Sophomore Punter Tom Snee

Snee has been one of the Ducks’ most consistent defensive weapons all season. He had only one punt on Saturday and it was blocked by UCLA with Oregon at its 42-yard line. UCLA recovered the blocked punt and four plays later scored its second TD.

Bruin QB Dorian Thompson-Robinson

The penalty moved the ball to Oregon’s 25-yard line and the Bruins ran the ball up the middle for a two-yard gain and a first down. A completed pass got another first down and moved the ball to the Oregon 11-yard line before the Ducks sacked Thompson-Robinson for an eight-yard loss.

With two seconds to go, UCLA then kicked a 37-yard FG that put the Bruins ahead 17-14 as the half ended.

The delay of game penalty and the Bruins’ ensuing scoring drive appeared to enrage most of the coaches on the Oregon sideline. Cristobal was waving his arms and shouting at the officials but his offensive line coach, Alex Mirabal, rushed the officials as the half ended and had to be restrained by security personnel and other coaching staff.

Seeing a coach lose control like that on national TV wasn’t only embarrassing to Duck fans, it also set a horrible example for the players who are constantly lectured about remaining calm and not losing their tempers to avoid unnecessary penalties on the field.

Had I been the Ducks’ head coach, I’d have sent Mirabal to the showers.

The Interesting

Oregon debuted their new “white eggshell” uniforms against UCLA. By the end of the game, playing on Rose Bowl grass, the white jerseys and pants speckled with black were also speckled with green. Not a bad look, and much better than the pink-and-black uniforms worn in the 2014 Arizona game to promote breast cancer awareness.

Making the College Football Playoff

In a season when Top 25 teams have toppled like tenpins, frenzied guesses about which four teams will be selected to participate in the annual College Football Playoff Jan. 9 in Indianapolis continue unabated.

On Saturday, two more Top 10 teams, previously undefeated Oklahoma State and 5-1 Penn State, lost their games. Undefeated Cincinnati, Oklahoma and Michigan won their games and Georgia and Michigan State—also undefeated so far—each had a bye week.

The other two Top 10 teams (besides Oregon), Alabama and Ohio State, also won their games Saturday. Like Oregon, each has only one loss this season and are 7-1 and 6-1, respectively.

The Associated Press college football rankings released Sunday bumped Oregon up from 10th to seventh place, behind Georgia (7-0), Cincinnati (7-0), Alabama (7-1), Oklahoma (8-0), Ohio State (6-1, with the loss to Oregon), and Michigan (7-0). Michigan State is eighth at 7-0. The new USA Today coaches’ poll has the same lineup, except for Michigan State bumping the Ducks to eighth place.

With five undefeated teams in the Top Ten, it would seem Oregon’s best chance of making it into the CFP will be to win its next five games and hope that two or more of the other teams get beaten.

Barring surprise wins by Colorado, which is up next, and/or the always unpredictable Washington (in Seattle on Nov. 6), Oregon’s main obstacles to getting a CFP bid appears to be Oregon State, whose only conference loss was a three-point defeat by Washington State on Oct. 2; Utah, who lost to OSU by eight points on Saturday, and WSU, who is 3-2 in the Pac-12 and lost to Brigham Young on Saturday after a two-point conversion attempt failed with four minutes left in the game.

The WSU, Utah and OSU games are Nov. 13, 20 and 27, with the Utah game in Salt Lake City.

The Oregonian’s sports columnist John Canzano observed, “Oregon has to go 12-1 just to stay in the national conversation. . . . Oregon plays up and down, depending on the competition. But if you’re waiting for the Ducks to fold up and go away, you may be here for a while.”

Next up

Oregon’s next game will be Saturday against Colorado at Autzen Stadium. The game will be shown on Fox starting at 12:30 p.m. Oregon leads its all-time series with the Buffaloes 13-9 (5-2 at Autzen) and is 6-1 since Colorado joined the Pac-12. The two teams were supposed to meet in the final week of the 2020 regular season but Oregon replaced Washington in the Pac-12 Championship game, which it won, and Colorado was left without an opponent.

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.