Good Luck Ducks, Week 1: Fresno Fever

The Ducks kick off the new college football season. 

 

Whether we're ready or not, it's college football season. From this fan's perspective, last year didn't really count. There were too many bad decisions and risky circumstances that led to an abbreviated Pac-12 schedule that I truly wished wasn't going to happen at all. They were basically the last conference to cave in to pressures to play football, and the so-called season carried all that weight with it. It's not really fair to the players who really wanted to play and gave it their all on the field when given the opportunity, but I just feel like I have to casually ignore what happened in 2020.

Okay, here's one last recap before we officially pretend it never happened. The Ducks started their season strong in November or something, and then sputtered towards the finish line and eventually lost confidence in their young quarterback. They only managed to play in the conference championship game because another team had too much COVID, and ended up winning the title and promoting their graduate transfer senior QB to... co-QB. The young QB ended up transferring, and they are starting the elder QB, a super senior, to start this season.

Conference champions, though! If there was anything done right last season, it was that the Ducks were able to reestablish themselves as conference champs and favorites. They come out of the game this year in the top dozen teams in the country, and with a supposedly healthy recruiting class to back it up. Their first test comes against the Fresno State Bulldogs, a Mountain West opponent coming off of a Week Zero victory by 45 points over UConn. Oregon is led this year by otherworldly defensive end Kayvon Thibodeaux, who has lofty aspirations of his own as he is looking to break the mold as a Heisman candidate. He is legitimately scary on the football field.

Series History: The Ducks are 7-2 all-time versus Fresno State, with their most recent matchup resulting in a 42-25 Oregon victory in 2012.

Opponent Talk: Hey, Tim DeRuyter is the new Ducks defensive coordinator. He was the Fresno State head coach for 5 years about 5 years ago. There was a time when I could have named several Ducks assistant coaches by name, but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore. It will help if Jake Haener can throw for 300 yards again.

I watched a bunch of YouTube footage of past FSU/UO games in preparation for this, and stumbled across this totally forgotten factoid. These teams played in the very first regular season D1 overtime game under the current rules back in 1996. The Ducks won!

Game time is at 11:00 AM PDT on the Pac-12 Network. Go Ducks!