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He’s a two-time conference champion and a future first-round pick. Now, the player who kicked off the wave of big-time talent coming to UO can wrap up with a Pac-12 three-peat
(Eric Evans/GoDucks.com photo)
Two years ago, the Pac-12 championship game served as Kayvon Thibodeaux’s unveiling.
Sure, the Oregon freshman defensive end was relatively known at the time. He was the No. 2 player in the 2019 class, the one who picked an Oregon hat instead of an Alabama one live on ESPN to become the top-rated recruit in program history. That moment in itself was validating for Mario Cristobal’s early vision for revamping Oregon with top-level talent. But now the No. 13 Ducks were back on a national stage in the title game for the first time since 2014, and all week Oregon players heard how No. 5 Utah was going to run all over them.
Really, the only question was whether the Utes could win by enough to get a longer look from the playoff selection committee.
Utah had a fine quarterback in Tyler Huntley, who had 46 touchdowns throughout his career as a starter, but the Utes’ offense depended on conference-leading rusher Zach Moss going to work. Utah had nearly 400 more rushing yards than any other team in the conference that year and came into Levi’s Stadium with 11 rushing touchdowns in its last three games.
“All week we talked about how we had to be the more physical team to win,” said Jordon Scott, Oregon’s former defensive tackle, “because their game plan was going to be the same game plan they have this Saturday: Run the ball.”
It was an effective strategy, but one with a flaw: Utah was a team that wasn’t built to play catch up, which made for a simple game plan for Oregon if the Ducks could execute.
Stuff the run, get a lead and let Thibodeaux take over.
After one quarter, Oregon led 10-0. At the half, it was 20-0. If the Utes had any hope of salvaging a playoff bid, they’d have to throw the ball in the second half.
That meant they’d have to go through Thibodeaux.
There’s a picture of former Oregon defensive tackle DeForest Buckner that flies around Twitter every Washington week. It shows the 6-foot-7, 300-pound future first-round pick plowing through UW’s offensive line. With arms holding off a pair of Huskies, Buckner appears unblockable, using pure force to pursue quarterback Jake Browning. It’s frightening really, and makes it seemingly all the more amazing that even Buckner, with all that size and all that strength, took time to mature at Oregon before he became a defensive force.
Yes, he won 2015’s Pac-12 defensive player of the year award as a senior, but it was a gradual build for a player who jumped from 7.5 sacks in his first three seasons to 10.5 in his final year. It was the same thing with Arik Armstead, who at 6-foot-8 and 290 pounds tallied four sacks in 39 games and was still picked 17th overall selection by San Francisco in 2015.
(Photo courtesy GoDucks.com)
Thibodeaux came to Eugene as Oregon’s best talent on the defensive line since those two departed a half-decade ago. Actually, he came rated better than both out of high school and at a fraction of their size. At 6-foot-5 and 242 pounds, Thibodeaux’s talent derived from his speed. His success came from his drive.
“The guy actually saw the game and everything we do,” Scott said. “In practice, doing drills, and even in meetings — I think it’s really special for a young player to already be in that mode, to be focused on the little things because that’s what’s going to happen in the game.”
Thibodeaux started the season slow, adjusting to the size of the game. He had three tackles, a tackle for a loss and no sacks through the first three games, but his career got a jumpstart when starting DE Gus Cumberlander went down for the season with an injury.
Finding his rhythm, Thibodeaux recorded 26 tackles, 6.5 sacks and 10.5 tackles for a loss over the next eight games heading into the title game. It was during that stretch that the rest of the locker room realized Oregon had a star on its hands.
“He came in with all this hype but he didn’t start talking until he started making plays,” said Scott, who was in his third year of starting on Oregon’s defensive line in 2019. “He was obviously confident. But he just started making plays in practice to earn respect. When he started, you could tell he was going to be one of those guys that they’re going to be talking about on ESPN for top picks.”
Utah saw that first hand. In the second half of Oregon’s 37-15 win, Thibodeaux had 2.5 sacks. He also blocked a punt and completely set the tone for a win that sent the Ducks to the Rose Bowl. Thibodeaux finished the year with nine sacks as a 19-year-old and has actually seen those numbers dip since, a combination of bad luck — 2020’s half season and 2021’s injury — and mostly because he’s at the top of every offensive coordinator’s to-do list when facing the Ducks.
A game for Thibodeaux is four quarters of fighting through double teams, chip blocks and game plans catered to stop just him.
“Even though I think people are always concerned about statistics and sacks, I think if you watch him in the way he affects a quarterback, it’s just as important as the sack itself,” Cristobal said. “It’s forcing a ball out early, a pressure that now makes the team slide the protection to account for him and change what they do depending on what hash they are, because they feel he might be the field, he might be the boundary, he might be lining up the middle because he continues to grow from a football IQ standpoint.
“He’s as good as it gets in the country…As the games go on you see more and more production from him in a lot of different ways and it’s time for him to step up and for the entire team to play our best football.”
The Ducks struggled two weeks ago against this Utah team in all facets, and Thibodeaux wasn’t immune. His 60.3 pass rush grade from PFF was his second-worst of the season and down from his season average of 91.7, and the Ducks registered just one tackle for a loss and sack in the game.
The Utes got the lead early, they rode the running game to 208 yards and four touchdowns on 50 carries and only had to attempt 18 passes to win 38-7. Oregon’s job Friday isn’t a whole lot different than it was two years ago. Stop that run and let Thibodeaux go.
He’s technically just a sophomore — remember, last year didn’t happen — but he walked with the rest of Oregon’s departing players during Saturday’s senior day festivities and will certainly walk on stage and shake Roger Goodell’s hand during the NFL Draft’s first round next spring. His timing at Oregon may not have coincided with a playoff run, but he has the opportunity to do something special on Friday.
See, Thibodeaux followed up his 2019 Pac-12 title game with a game-MVP performance in 2020, recording a sack, three tackles for a loss and 12 hurries in Oregon’s 31-24 win over USC. In two conference title games, that’s now 18 pressures, 10 tackles, 4.5 tackles for a loss, 3.5 sacks and a blocked punt. Since the Pac-12 formed in 2011 and the Ducks won the inaugural championship 49-31 over UCLA at Autzen Stadium, no team has three-peated. Stanford won three out of four conference titles from 2012-2015, a stretch that was only broken by Oregon’s 2014 title run.
But nobody has won three in a row.
Thibodeaux and the Ducks have that chance Friday and it feels like he saw this coming two years ago. He knew the Ducks faced a future without quarterback Justin Herbert and had a bunch of new faces on the defense. And it was a challenge he was ready to embrace.
“I don’t see any decline. I don’t see anybody that wants to quit” he said then. “Everybody wants to live up to and fill the shoes.”
— Tyson Alger
