Good Luck Ducks, Week 13: All Out War

It's Civil War day, with both schools seemingly headed in opposite directions. 

Fresh off the return of their starting quarterback and a solid thumping of Arizona last week, the Oregon Ducks head into their conference finale with a lot of confidence. Justin Herbert shook off some rust and looked impressive in his ability to throw the ball downfield, something apparently no other active members of the Ducks roster can do. Oregon continued to run the ball with reckless abandon and did it well. The defense stepped up and made key plays. In fact, the only thing to find fault with were the penalties, which have continued to plague the Ducks all season. Still, it's not hard to feel good about where Oregon is headed right now.

All of this is before we look at today's opponent. It's seems fair to safe that Oregon State has bottomed out at this point. The Beavers head to Eugene today with zero conference wins and just one victory total, a come from behind squeaker against an FCS opponent (Portland State). Their head coach walked away from this sorry bunch (and supposedly a ton of money) in the middle of the season. Their interim coach doesn't seem like he will be the guy leading the program forward, either, and supposedly they have already hired a new coach even though they're currently denying it to the media. On the field, the Beavers do have one man wrecking crew Ryan Nall, who flattened the Ducks a year ago. They don't have much else, unfortunately.

Rivalry games are fun because you never really know what will happen. OSU, despite being underdogs by multiple touchdowns, could rally for an inspiring victory and dance on Rich Brooks Field in Autzen Stadium. This is their Super Bowl, after all. Not having a single win that counts for anything has to be more of an inspirational factor than anything at this point. But will it happen? It shouldn't happen. Oregon is too talented to slip up again, the way they slipped up last season with a coach that had probably long since lost the team. Today should be a 7th win for Oregon and a bit of an uptick in bowl game selection at the very least. And there's always, you know, the whole winning the state thing.

121st Civil War links:

• OregonLive puts together this list every year, but reading the history of some of the early games in this series is fascinating. "Rowdy, hat-grabbing behavior"
• Thomas Tyner was one of the greatest high school running backs in Oregon history, then went on to star with the Ducks in the 2013 Civil War. He's on the wrong side of the rivalry now.
• Willie Taggart Status Alert: Still coaching the Ducks (for now). Honestly, if he leaves for Florida, he would come across as one of the biggest frauds around, at least this side of the nation's capital.
• Know Your Opponent: The Beavers are going to counter Oregon's newly found run-stopping abilities with, uh, more running I guess?
• The Unis!: All green. Love it.

20 years ago, the Akili Smith to Patrick Johnson connection was on point.

Game time is 4:00 PM PST. Broadcast channel is ESPN2. Your scheduled broadcasters are Roy Philpott, Tom Ramsey and Alex Corddry. Go Ducks!