Good Luck Ducks, Week 6: Bruin Time

Dylan Raiola gets his first Oregon start as the Quack Attack hosts the other team from California.

It's great that the Ducks had their bye week after the unpleasantness that transpired down at the LA Memorial Coliseum. It made national news when some jerk made what appeared to be a premeditated attack on Dante Moore on the field which resulted in the dreaded ambulance on the field and a trip to the local hospital. (I only say premeditated because of the immediate reaction of the player and his teammates.) Things like this in real life would get you thrown in jail, but, hey, it's football I guess?

Fortunately, Dante Moore did not suffer more serious injuries than a concussion. Less fortunately, but important in a football sense, Oregon has a highly skilled and experienced QB in Dylan Raiola, who after a nice 3 TD warmup in relief duty against Portland State, came out blazing against the suckwad Trojans and led the Ducks to a comfortable victory after what had been a very tense matchup.

The ex-Nebraska QB may or may not start against his former team next week, but first he and the Quack Attack have the UCLA Bruins to deal with. The Bruins were the other team that helped initiate the mass Pac-12 defection, and yet you could say that they've been even less relevant than their LA rivals. I always talk about USC not really being important since that 2006 Rose Bowl, but I can't even put a year on the last time UCLA mattered. They are off to a nice start so far, though, and they no longer have Chip Kelly mucking about. Today kicks off the first of three home games in a four week stretch in B1G play, so it's all hands on deck as they say. Or at least that's what sailing people say, I guess.

Notes:

• If Raiola continues to dominate in the manner that he has in the two halves or so of football that he's played this year (albeit under very different circumstances in each occasion), there's going to be a pretty awkward conversation that needs to happen eventually. Moore's struggles to start this season could be explained away as an adjustment period to the new play-caller and changes made to the O-line, or you could also point back to a performance slide that started with the playoffs last season. I don't really have a strong feeling about this.
• Opponent fun fact: UCLA has two mascots: Joe and Josephine Bruin. Apparently they were originally live bear (cub) mascots, but they appear now in costumed form. Josephine looks rather sassy, which is fun.
• Opponent history: UCLA holds a slight edge (38-35), with Oregon winners of the last 5 meetings.
• Game time is 12:30 PM PDT on CBS in Eugene. Go Ducks!