Good Luck Ducks, Week 7: Fuskies

The Game of the Year. 

For the second time this season, and maybe the third depending on how much you cared about the Cal game, it's time for Oregon to take center stage in their biggest game in years. This one is personal. I may have made light of, in this very space, the opponent and how they lost twelve straight times to Oregon. Kenny Wheaton's gonna score, etc. All of this stuff happened, and it was very glorious. Unfortunately, the Ducks have been outscored 108 to 24 in the last two meetings. One hundred and eight to twenty four. One hundred and eight to twenty four. ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHT TO TWENTY FOUR. 108-24! What. The. HELL.

Of course, an obvious thing to look at in the recent history of this series is that one team has always severely outranked the other, and up until recently that was always Oregon. The last two seasons, UW had the ranking and Oregon had no ranking and a lot of issues. Today is very different, in that both schools are in the Top 25 and both have no expectation of losing. It's going to be quite a game.

Senior QB Jake Browning matches up against Junior QB Justin Herbert, who actually made his first start against these Huskies in the dreadful first blowout of 2016. There's no doubt that Herbert wants to right the ship here, while Browning has been fairly lackluster in his fourth season. The Ducks were fortunate enough to have some time to heal with the early bye week and should come into today's meeting at nearly full strength. Tony Brooks-James, a senior who's ostensibly the starting running back, has been limited or completely held out of the running game several times this season, so it should be nice to see him back. Some alarming things happened defensively even in the comfortable win over Cal two weeks ago, so the hope is that the defense has also had ample time to recover.

Links:

• Coach Cristobal is full-on embracing the rivalry, which is refreshing and nice to see... and not what we've come to expect from a non-alumnus. I'm good with it.
• Oregon enters unprecedented territory with their third consecutive game as a ranked opponent facing another ranked opponent. FYI, they are 32nd all-time in weeks ranked in the AP poll.
• Herbert Heisman Temperature Level: Mild. I mean, I guess he's on the list.
• Know Your Opponent: Yes, everyone remembers Jake Browning taunting the Ducks two years ago at Autzen. You should be concerned about payback, you Huskies.
• The Unis!: Although this would be a perfect time to pull out some Kenny Wheaton era throwbacks, yellow it is.

#17 Oregon hosts #7 Washington in a football game. Do you remember the time when Washington got smashed... by a lot? That also happened.

Game time is 12:30 PM PDT on ABC/ESPN2 (mostly just in SEC territory.) Sean McDonough, Todd Blackledge and Holly Rowe will be on the call.