'Nothing fazes us': Ducks display resiliency in win over Washington State

EUGENE — No amount of self-inflicted — or referee-inflicted — wounds could stop Oregon Saturday night.

The Ducks gave up a 70-yard pass on the first play from scrimmage, fumbled the ball twice, including once at their own goal line, and looked at one point like they might end up on the wrong end of a Pac-12 officiating disaster.

And yet, none of it much mattered. Such is life in the Pac-12, where every weekend gets whackier and whackier, and the only constant seems to be Oregon finding a new way to win each time it steps on the field.

The No. 3 Ducks topped Washington State, 38-24, at Autzen Stadium and improved to 9-1 on the season. When push came to shove, they out-muscled a talented Cougar team that was desperate to gain bowl eligibility and ran the ball down their throats to the tune of 306 rushing yards on 47 carries.

Style points are great, sure. But top-10 teams have been dropping like flies the past few weeks, and Oregon found a way Saturday to do what Oklahoma, Michigan State, and countless other contenders have failed to do recently: win by any means necessary.

“Every game is a playoff game,” Oregon edge rusher Kayvon Thibodeaux said. “Us having this target on our backs, it makes every team wanna play their best. One thing that we had a problem with was playing down to teams.

“Now, I feel like we’re in that mode where teams have to play up to us.”

The margins were thin for Oregon on Saturday. There were a handful of “what-if ” moments throughout the evening that could have derailed the Ducks.

Jamal Hill made a desperation tackle at the goal line on Washington State’s opening drive to knock the ball of the end zone for a touchback and prevent a Jayden de Laura touchdown.

Early in the third quarter, just after Oregon had gone ahead 21-14, it forced Washington State into 3rd-and-2 at midfield. Defensive coordinator Tim DeRuyter sent the house after de Laura, and Kristian Williams pressured him into an incompletion to kill the drive. Oregon then proceeded to run seven minutes off the clock and kick a field goal to make it a two-score game.

When Anthony Brown fumbled at the goal line early in the third quarter, Kris Hutson tracked down Jaylen Watson to prevent him from returning the fumble the length of the field. The defense stood tall after that and held the Cougars to a field goal.

Those were make-or-break moments that might have broken the Ducks earlier in the season.

We had seen this before from Oregon. In the Fresno State, Cal, Stanford, and UCLA games, the Ducks flashed instances of brilliance, only to turn around and blast a hole in their own boat moments later.

It’s a testament to the growth of this Oregon squad that it continuously put out fires throughout the evening and never allowed Washington State to claw its way back into the game.

“Nothing fazes us,” Oregon safety Verone McKinley III said. “We always just play the next play. You can’t dwell — you’ve just got to keep going.”

For teams in Oregon’s position, there’s such an emphasis at this point in the year on not just winning, but doing everything imaginable to impress the College Football Playoff committee. At times, it can feel more like a beauty pageant than a football season.

Maybe Oregon will live to regret not putting itself in a position to run up the score on the Cougars. When Mario Cristobal fielded questions postgame about his team’s pliability in pivotal moments Saturday, he lamented the Ducks’ failure to push their lead to 17 after Brown’s late-game fumbled. It’s the second weekend in the row that Oregon missed out on an opportunity to pad the final scoreline.

But Cristobal seemed far more concerned with how the Ducks responded when their backs were against the wall.

“Look at the effort of our players trying to get that guy on the ground,” Cristobal said. “That’s really good team football. We’re growing. We’re getting better. 1-0 is sinking in.

“I think we’re just scratching the surface.”