The traveling freak show that is the Oregon Ducks football team is in Tempe tonight, under the lights, to face the Arizona St. Sun Devils in prime time. The Ducks have typically fared very well after a bye week, and hopefully the extra time off will give them a chance to correct a few things that have been recurring themes so far this season. The offense has been very "feast or famine", with the famine side of the coin coming up more often than not in the past three games. Not coincidentally, wild card De'Anthony Thomas hasn't done much with the ball in those three games. It feels surprising to write this about a team that is scoring as much as Oregon has been scoring while blowing their opponents out of water, but a large part of why the games have gone the way they have has had to do with a very opportunistic defense.
Marcus Mariota will eventually get this offense running like a well-oiled machine. He is a freshman, after all. Games like tonight's game scare me a great deal, especially when the opponent is playing on their own turf and is sitting pretty with a 5-1 overall record. Neither team has played any powerhouse teams yet, but Oregon comes into this game knowing they are facing an opponent on the road that can play well on both sides of the ball. Limiting mistakes, getting the ball into the hands of their most explosive playmakers (hello, De'Anthony) and creating more of those turnovers that appear to have come so easy to the Ducks this year will all be important tonight.
I expect a win tonight, but I'm more nervous about this game than any of their games going back to sometime last season. Lets hope the Ducks stomp all over those ridiculous trident yardmarkers and head into the weekend with a still unblemished record.
(Requisite YouTube clip still to come. In the meantime, watch this.)
Game time at 6:00 PDT with national coverage on ESPN. Go Ducks!
Thursday night games are always a little scary, especially when they're away games.
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