Saturday, October 10, 2015

Good Luck Ducks, Week 6: We Can Get Down


Oregon heads back to the road with a lot of moving parts.

Last Saturday's win over Colorado raised as many questions as it provided answers. It appears that the Ducks are going to try to ride out Vernon Adams Jr's broken finger for a couple more weeks by going with a two headed monster house elf (?) at quarterback, with backup Jeff Lockie and local walk-on Taylor Alie splitting time. This worked against Colorado because Colorado is still not good at football. Oregon seemed to limit risky pass plays and put heavy emphasis on their talented running corps. Results were mixed, but the Ducks got a decent lead and always kept the Buffaloes at arm's length if never completely putting them away.

Will this work against a slightly better Washington State team? Will this work against 4-2 Washington? On the road? The thing that I've dreaded the most about this season when it became clear that this was not going to be an elite Ducks year was the potential for the end to the streak of dominating the Huskies, which goes back to 2004. We're still a week away from that madness, so it's best not to even think of it.

It's not all gloom and doom down in Eugene as the Ducks gear up for a second straight home game. Royce Freeman looked great last week. Star WR Bralon Addison threw an absolute gem of a touchdown pass. It would be great to see the offense open up some more and see some fun plays like that rolled out against the Cougars. WSU has such a treacherous history that Oregon putting up any kind of lead could easily feel insurmountable. It's tough to say what the transfer Adams will be able to do this season with the clock ticking and nearly half of the games in the books already. Much of my attention will be focused on baseball playoffs today, but hopefully the Ducks will be locked in on a game that they should once again win.

100 points were scored during Washington State's last trip to Eugene, in 2013.

Game time is 3:00 PDT with national coverage on the Pac-12 Network. Go Ducks!

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