Doug Day Download: UCLA Win

Via Doug Scott (Dougts)

Hello and welcome to the debut edition of the Doug Day Download. This will be a recurring article every Wednesday where I touch on what’s happened and what’s coming for the Ducks, as well as the rest of the Big Ten and College Football landscape.

1. Holy hell UCLA is awful. Offense, Defense, doesn’t matter.  This is a bad bad football team.  They are thanking the stars that Purdue is in the Big Ten, because it’s the only thing keeping them out of the last spot in the rankings. Unfortunately for UCLA, they don’t even get to play the Boilermakers (or the sure-fire 3rd worst team in the B1G in Northwestern), so an 0-9 conference season is decidedly in play for the Bruins and first year head coach DeShaun Foster.
2. Oregon’s defense finally played a complete game. I wasn’t sure this was gonna happen after UCLA moved down the field with relative ease on the first drive, converting 2 long third downs along the way. But the defense held firm in the red zone, forced a field goal, and then largely dominated the rest of the way.  172 yards, 6 points, 3.6 yards per play, 2 takeaways, 4 sacks, and 7 tackles for loss tell the story. Yes, the UCLA offense is bad. But dominating bad offenses is what great defenses do. And Oregon finally put its first complete game of the year together on that side of the ball.
3. The offense remains an inconsistent enigma. 29 minutes into the game you felt like the offense was also on track for a complete game, even with the stifled 2nd drive that ended in a field goal. Then Dillon Gabriel floated an absolutely baffling Duck (not the good kind) of a pass near the goal line with 10 seconds left in the half, and compounded it by making a spectacularly pathetic attempt to prevent the touchdown. From that point on, the Ducks went punt – punt to open the 3rd, and then full turtle to close out the game. Whether this was the decision due to ultra conservatism, the desire to prevent injury, or an acknowledgement to the short week ahead is unknown, but the offensive performance was a tale of two halves to be sure.
4. The Run Game continues to be efficient but lacks explosion.  James had another solid outing, toting the rock 20 times for 102 yards and a touchdown.  However, as has been the case all season, his longest was just 16 yards in this one. Regardless, James continues to show why he is an elite back while Noah was less effective at just 2.6 per carry and Jayden Limar posted a similar number in late mop up action. The Ducks favored the passing game about 60/40 in this one prior to the 4th quarter garbage time, which I will assume is a product of wanting to build improvement and cohesion there.  
5. The downfield passing game shows signs of life but needs more. Look ,Will Stein and the Ducks are always going to favor getting the ball out quick in screens and the rest of the quick passing game, but for this offense to truly unleash its full potential, they need more hits in the vertical passing game, which will in turn open up the shorter passes and runs when the defense has to respect the deep threat more. A couple of nice connections in the first half on well designed and executed plays showed the potential for more in this sector of the game, and Gabriel and the Ducks lost out on another surefire TD when Pat Herbert short-armed a perfectly timed and placed seam pass in the 2nd quarter. Still, the Ducks need to find a way to present a more consistent and credible threat in the intermediate and deep passing game, and getting Evan Stewart (and Kenyon Sadiq) more involved seems like the obvious answer.
6. Michigan State should be a relatively easy win, but Oregon needs to play sharp. This is it. The last tuneup game before Ohio State comes to Autzen on October 12th. It’s now game 5, the season is 1/3 over, teams are building towards their peak.  I want to see Oregon play 2 halves like they played the first 29.75 minutes of the UCLA game – on both sides of the ball. Michigan State is a more talented football team than UCLA, but they aren’t a good football team, and they are led by a quarterback who is more than willing to turn the ball over generously.  If the Ducks are in a close game into or beyond the mid third, we have a problem.  But I don’t expect that to happen. It is now time to start clicking on all cylinders.