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A Buckeye tree was planted on Oregon’s campus 63 years ago. The Ducks haven’t beaten the Buckeyes in the 63 years since. We’re not saying….we’re just saying.
EUGENE — Oregon is 1-0 and that’s a perfectly fine place to be after the weekend the Pac-12 North had. Needle as you will, the Ducks didn’t derail the momentum of a team heading into its biggest nonconference road game in six years. Maybe a less-than-thrilling 31-24 win over Fresno State serves as just a speed bump.
But as the No. 12 Ducks arrive in Columbus set to face No. 3 Ohio State on Saturday, Oregon’s 2018 season comes to mind.
Specifically a ho-hum win over San Jose State in Week 3.
That was Justin Herbert’s junior year and his first real season with expectations under first-year head coach Mario Cristobal. Oregon won seven games the year before, returned a strong group of offensive lineman, Troy Dye at middle linebacker and Herbert, who came into the year with Heisman whispers. The team was talented, and a bit untested.
Oregon’s nonconference schedule in 2018 was, to be kind, easy. The Ducks opened with a 58-24 win over Bowling Green and followed with a 62-14 win over FCS-level Portland State. Next came San Jose State, a middling team from the Mountain West.
With No. 7 Stanford looming in Week 4, Oregon struggled. The Ducks won 35-22, but Herbert completed only 47 percent of his passes, the Ducks got nothing going on the ground and SJSU believed it was in it far longer than the Ducks would have preferred.
From my gamer in The Athletic in 2018:
The team that lost to FCS member UC Davis, got shut out by Washington State and was a 41.5-point underdog to Oregon spent the last five minutes of Saturday’s game against the Ducks pacing the sideline, looking at the clock and out at the field. Some of the players were smiling.
San Jose State never really was within threatening distance, but the Spartans were at least close enough to warrant a late onside kick. And up until the moment the Spartans couldn’t come up with a fourth-quarter miracle, this third and final helping of nonconference cupcake for Oregon was beginning to churn in the stomach like fruitcake.
The 20th-ranked Ducks won 35-22 to improve to 3-0, and during coach Mario Cristobal’s news conference, news began to trickle out about the much-anticipated matchup next week with Stanford. “College GameDay” is headed to Eugene, but that’s not the programming Cristobal is about to bury his nose in.
“The best thing about this (game) is the mood in the locker room is not content. Not satisfied,” Cristobal said. “ … You can learn a lesson and learn from this without having to pay the price of not winning a football game.”
San Jose State would win one game that year, and the Ducks would lose 38-31 the following week to Stanford in overtime, a game in which a couple key miscues cost Cristobal his first win over a top-10 opponent at Oregon.
Oregon’s a different team now. The Ducks have more depth on their roster. They’re more talented at most positions and Cristobal is far more compensated after going 26-10 with a pair of Pac-12 titles in his first three seasons. But that uneasy feeling after San Jose State three years ago feels similar to the one the Ducks came out with after Fresno State on Saturday. The Ducks didn’t dominate an inferior opponent — not without Kayvon Thibodeaux at least — and, like in 2018, the opponent had hope far too late in the game.
It could all mean nothing. Oregon purposefully showed a vanilla offensive game plan against Fresno State. There is some gamesmanship here and it’s not like Ohio State is coming off a 60-point win of their own.
But think of the best Oregon seasons. In 2014, the Ducks put 62 points on South Dakota before throwing another 46 on No. 7 Michigan State in Week 2. The 2010 Ducks won 72-0 over New Mexico in Week 1 then went on the road to SEC Country and beat Tennessee 48-13. Those same Oregon Ducks who looked shaky to open 2018 returned in 2019 to score 77 points against Nevada and thump Montana 35-3.
That 2018 Oregon team ended up being pretty decent, by the way. The Ducks went 9-4 and did get that top-10 win at home against Washington a few weeks after Stanford.
They were nearly there. I wonder if the 2021 Ducks will feel the same.
Brandon Dorlus isn’t new in Eugene.
The 6-foot-3, 284-pound third-year defensive lineman played in 16 games over the last two seasons and made his first career start count in 2020 with 12 tackles, 2 tackles for a loss and a sack in the conference championship game. On any other iteration of the Oregon Ducks, Dorlus would be a household name. It’s just that most versions of these Ducks haven’t had a player like Thibodeaux who can cast a shadow on even the best players.
That could change Saturday.
Thibodeaux made the trip, but his status is still unknown following the ankle injury he suffered last week against Fresno State. Cristobal has maintained that his edge rusher is “day-to-day” with a sprain, and that’s probably all we’ll hear until the Ducks set foot in Ohio Stadium for warm-ups.
With Ohio State’s massive offensive line — all five starters are above 315 pounds — and a lethal receiving corps, Oregon’s chances may stop and end with Thibodeaux’s availability.
But even if Thibodeaux plays, it’s going to take a supporting effort from players like Dorlus, Popo Aumavae and the rest of Oregon’s defensive line.
“It starts up front,” Cristobal said. “They have the ability to protect the quarterback and give him time to scan the field and get the ball down the field to the guys who are really explosive, really fast and have great ball skills. They’re a great offense, a great football team with elite talent.”
Thibodeaux had two tackles, a sack and a forced fumble through routine double teams as Fresno State scored all of its 24 points after he had left the field. Dorlus had a fourth-quarter sack.
“As a defense we have a quote every morning when we walk in, it says on the board, ‘Why not us?,’” Dorlus said after practice Tuesday. “This year is going to be the year that they feel us for sure.”
It’s easy to overlook Johnny Johnson III.
In an era of Oregon football increasingly obsessed with recruiting stats and stars, nothing about Johnson’s profile really pops. He’s 6-foot-1 and about 200 pounds, and the former three-star recruit is now the fifth-year senior in a room loaded with young talent.
Freshman Troy Franklin came to Oregon and earned a starting spot in camp.
I hear his classmate Dont’e Thornton’s speed is unmatched.
Yet there Johnson was Saturday, leading the Ducks with three catches for 76 yards and the 15th touchdown of his career. He had a first-quarter drop on a beautifully thrown Anthony Brown Jr. deep ball, the least concerning of the few miscues the Ducks made Saturday. If there’s one thing Johnson’s shown in his four years in Eugene, it’s that catching the deep ball is rarely and issue. He made up for it in the second quarter when hauling in Brown’s 32-yard throw for a touchdown down the right sideline.
Johnson isn’t a guy who is going to test off the charts at the combine. But there’s a short list of receivers in Oregon history better at making adjustments with their body mid-air.
Here’s Saturday:
And a few other times:
The Ducks do expect big things from Franklin this year, who was limited last week with an injury. But if Oregon’s going to be successful I think we’re going to see a lot more of this Brown-to-Johnson connection. Brown has a plus arm and throws a nice deep ball. Johnson, minus a drop here and there, has a reputation for pulling down big passes through contact. Four years in, there’s no hesitation in his game.
It could be key for an Oregon team that is looking to expand an offense that only had four passes go for more than 15 yards last week.
“We got into a lull (against Fresno State) and we can’t do that in order to win big games,” Johnson said. “We got to stay more consistent.”
Oregon’s defensive backfield remains one of the Ducks biggest curiosities entering the second week. Thin in Week 1 with the suspensions of Jamall Hill and DJ James — both projected starters coming into fall camp — the Ducks allowed former Washington quarterback Jake Haener to have a relatively efficient day for Fresno State, passing for 298 yards and a touchdown while completing 70 percent of his passes.
The Ducks never looked glaringly off, but it was interesting to watch Fresno target the space around the lengthy Trikweze Bridges at corner, while staying away from All-Conference Mykael Wright’s side.
“Sometimes they were supposed to be pressed up there and sometimes they created a cushion and the ball is chucked out there on a hitch or comeback and you want those plays back,” Cristobal said. “But it comes sometimes with playing an extended role in a game like this…if you’re not precise, they’re going to get ya. But Trikweze stepped up and made some really good plays.”
James and Hill were back with the team this week and will be eligible to play on Saturday. And while James will likely fight for reps among Bridges and Dontae Manning, Hill is going to move into a time share with Bennett Williams, who played in Hill’s nickel role last week.
Williams, a former freshman All-American at Illinois, played at Ohio State in 2017.
“We weren’t as talented as this team,” Williams said.
Let’s hope: Ohio State scored 28 first-quarter points in that game en route to a 52-14 win.
We got to talk about the tree for a second.
See, Oregon has played Ohio State nine times and all nine times it’s gone poorly for the Ducks.
The Ducks have lost big (30-0 in 1967) and they’ve lost small (10-7 in 1958). They’ve lost in the Natty (42-20 in the 2015) and at the Grand Daddy of Them All (Rose Bowl 2010).
Yes, Oregon and Ohio State have turned into the premier teams of their respective conferences. But in this matchup of Big Ten and Pac-12 titans, the Buckeyes have more than an edge.
Through all of this one thing has remained constant: The Buckeye tree on Oregon’s campus. It’s 60 feet tall, sits outside of Oregon’s business building and even has a plaque commemorating the day it was planted.
Apparently the tree was planted on campus following Oregon’s 10-7 Rose Bowl loss in 1958. Had Oregon won, Ohio State would have planted a Douglas fir tree on its campus in Columbus.
Who knows if a Douglas fir would even survive on that side of the country, but the Buckeye sure is thriving rent free on Oregon’s campus. And while The I-5 Corridor is not an advocate for clear cutting, if the streak makes it to 10 games maybe it’s time for a little landscaping.
— Tyson Alger
