Good Luck Ducks, Week 4: White on White

Oregon faces their biggest road test in years.

It's back to conference play for the rest of the season as the Ducks head to Beaver Stadium to take on the Penn State Nittany Lions. Oregon played very well in the B1G Championship Game last season when they took down Penn State at a neutral site that was pretty tilted towards the team in white. That was last year's Ducks, however. I'm not sure that any of the games they have played so far this season have done much to prepare them for tonight's battle, as Oregon State served no purpose other than as a punching bag after their opening touchdown. The Northwestern crowd was certainly hostile, but small. Very small, in fact. There will something like nine times the number of people in attendance tonight.

Oregon may be getting their starting running back Noah Whittington back tonight after he missed the past two games with an injury. The Ducks have had carries from 7 different running backs (and a number of non-running backs, of course), but I'd expect them to pair their rotation down to just a few key players in such a huge game. Dante Moore has been excellent, throwing darts all over the field, but we'll see how he reacts to a wild "white out" megacrowd tonight. The odd thing about the whole "white out" concept is that it's generally the opponent that is wearing white.

Penn State has an experienced senior quarterback in Drew Allar, who threw 3 TDs (and two picks) against the Ducks last December. I imagine Allar has had this game circled on his calendar for quite awhile now. (To be fair, do any college students have paper calendars on their walls? Maybe he set a calendar reminder on his phone: "Beat the Ducks today.") While the current college football playoff format affords strong teams a loss or two against another strong team without completely removing said team from consideration, I doubt anyone on either side is thinking about anything other than winning this big game tonight. Well, and maybe the party tonight. Oh, the college parties.

Notes and miscellany:

• There's a good chance I'll be missing a large chunk of the second half of the game as I'm heading down to Providence Park later to watch the Portland Timbers play FC Dallas. I'll try to keep up with things on my phone, but you know how that goes.
• Opponent fun fact: A "nittany lion" isn't a real thing. Penn State's mascot was named after nearby Mount Nittany and the idea that mountain lions once roamed the area, supposedly. Of course, "seahawks" also aren't really a thing. Ducks, though? VERY REAL (and ferocious.)
• Opponent history: Penn State holds a 3-2 edge after their loss in the conference championship last season. The only other meeting in my lifetime happened in the Rose Bowl in 1995, where Gang Green was stymied by Ki-Jana Carter.
• Game time is 4:30 PM PDT on NBC in University Park. Go Ducks!