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Tyler Shough has the opportunity to pull off something rare Saturday: Getting revenge on the Ducks.
You know, it’s been a bit since we’ve had a good, old-fashioned revenge game like this one.
To be clear, Oregon and Tyler Shough didn’t leave on nasty terms. The former Oregon starting quarterback has found a comfy home at Texas Tech, where he’s been the off-and-on starter as he’s battled injuries the last two seasons. Last week, Shough was 31-of-47 for 338 yards, 3 touchdowns and an interception in the Red Raiders’ 35-33 overtime loss to Wyoming.
Still, there once was a time when Shough dreamed of being the quarterback Oregon trotted out on billboards. Shough came to Eugene as one of the first big recruits of the Mario Cristobal era, backed up Justin Herbert for two seasons, and then spent the rest of his time in Eugene fighting off hypothetical — Oregon’s all-out courtship of D.J. Uiagalelei — and literal competition. Shough’s one year as the team’s starting quarterback in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season came while Oregon brought in Boston College transfer Anthony Brown Jr. to breathe down his neck.
By 2021, Brown was Oregon’s starter and Shough was in the transfer portal.
Today, he’ll be starting against the Ducks. And yes, Oregon’s on a new staff. And yes, Shough should be mature enough at this stage of his career to not buy into the hype of a game like this.
He’s got a beard now, after all.
“He’s an older guy, so I think he understands,” Texas Tech coach Joey McGuire said. “You’ve just got to understand it’s about us. So if you focus on them, that allows you to take away from what you need to really get better at.”
Still, we just don’t get many games like this around Oregon.
Running back Thomas Tyner played against the Ducks in the Civil War for Oregon State, but by then Tyner was a shell of the player he once was. Darren Carrington caught 9 passes for 130 yards in his only game against the Ducks after being kicked off the team following a DUI arrest in the summer of 2017. But Carrington’s Utes lost 41-20 to the Braxton Burmeister-led Ducks. He also had a key fumble returned for a touchdown by Ugo Amadi.
As for quarterbacks, all we’ve had so far is the Best Revenge is Living Well tour:
Terry Wilson: Had a great career at Kentucky that would have completely made Oregon fans jealous had it not run parallel to the career of Justin Herbert.
Bryant Bennett: The same thing, but substitute Kentucky for Southeastern Louisiana and Herbert for Marcus Mariota.
Travis Jonsen: He did win a Super Bowl — as a receiver for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after transferring from Oregon to Montana State.
Dakota Prukop: Oregon’s attempt at Vernon Adams Jr. 2.0 didn’t quite work out, with Prukop’s last pass as Oregon’s starter falling incomplete against Colorado. However, the former Montana State star has actually put together a six-plus-year career in the CFL.
Justin Roper: After being beaten out for the starting job by Jeremiah Masoli, the 6-foot-6 Roper ended up in Missoula, where he earned the unfortunate nickname “Overthroper,” as he eventually lost the starting job to Andrew Selle of West Billings.
Now, to the mailbag:
What game do you think Oregon gets a special jersey for? — Adam Bryant
USC. If things go right, that’ll be one of the most anticipated games of the Pac-12 era. Plus, if you’re the Big Ten, you got to be in Oregon’s ear to turn some heads as one of the jewels of its conference heist takes center stage.
And, if this is going to be the final Oregon/Oregon State game, I sure as heck wouldn’t mind seeing Oregon try and honor some history and wear some throwbacks.
The Ducks are wearing chrome helmets tonight, which is always a good time to callback my favorite story from Oregon equipment guru Kenny Farr.
On the 2012 Rose Bowl helmets:
“We had seen the samples of the helmet and it was super exciting because it was kind of new. Nobody had done that before. And then we took it outside and it was like, wow, this is pretty cool. But it was like a September/October Eugene, Oregon day. It was totally overcast. It looked good. And then we’re going out the morning of the Rose Bowl and there’s not a cloud in the sky. We’re walking around with all these mirrors all over the field.
But it worked out all right. The good thing is I was more worried about Coach [Brett] Bielema at Wisconsin making a big fuss about it. We didn’t have a backup set of game helmets and if there would have been an issue we would have had to wear our practice helmets in the Rose Bowl. That would have been a little rough.”
Tyson, how in the hell does Oregon beat the brakes off of Portland St. the way they did, and not have even one sack? I found this alarming. I don’t think Oregon’s D line is as good as us diehards have been led to believe. — Randy Key
I mean, the Ducks did rip a dude’s ear off.
In truth, I really don’t think you can take much good or bad from Portland State. According to PFF, Oregon pressured the QB seven times, produced five hurries and hit him twice. You better believe that PSU coach Bruce Barnum was in Dante Chachere’s ear to not hold onto the ball a second longer than he needed to. Chachere is the key to Portland State’s season and the Vikings are looking to protect him at all costs. The Vikings also rushed the ball nearly twice as much as they threw it.
Still, you would have liked to have seen a performance like, say, Oregon State’s, where the Beavers netted four sacks and 16 pressures.
But we’re sure going to find out, aren’t we? Shough and Texas Tech are going to throw the ball a ton. And while many will focus on the matchup that presents for Oregon’s retooled secondary, it’s just as important for that front-seven to find its footing. We’ve spent a lot of time talking about how the Ducks are thinner and faster at linebacker. Let’s see how that impacts a game where they’ll be used in coverage — and for keeping Shough contained. While Shough has been injured throughout his Tech career, he did rush for 111 yards and two touchdowns in last year’s finale against Ole Miss.
So our out of conference matchups are more like Alabama’s, but our in-conference matchups are… more like Alabama’s. If we run the table, do we get CFP love? — John Duggan
If Oregon runs the table with this schedule?
They’ll be the No. 1 team in the country. The Pac-12 is strong enough this year where a one-loss team should get in, too.
So brace yourselves for a four-way tie at the top with four-loss teams.
The Pac is off to a 13-0 start! Overreaction is natural at the beginning of every college football season. But don’t we, the fans of this great 108 year old conference, deserve to overreact since this is the last season as we know it? — Wade Clark
Heck yeah we deserve to enjoy it.
Even before realignment came through to finish the Pac off, it’s a shame what the various commissioners, presidents and athletic directors had allowed our brand of athletics to turn into.
The Pac-12 has been a punching bag, more often than not, since the 10 became 12. It’s the conference that beats itself up, the conference that sees its playoff contenders implode as the rest of the country sleeps, it’s the conference that Cougs it. And we here on the West Coast allow ourselves to laugh. We allow ourselves self-deprecating jokes, because we know football’s been played much longer than the last 10 years, because we have history.
Or at least we did.
So yeah, enjoy this ride. It could be over before you read this.
If Colorado wins 8-10 games should it be looked at as a further erosion of the college football mythos of being loyal to schools and the idea of football players being amateurs when Coach Prime and staff gutted the roster, pushed 70-plus kids to leave, and brought in an entire new team in an offseason? Or should it be celebrated because it is a massive turnaround of a horrible team using everything within the current structure to make it happen?
Also is there too much hype around them? Not enough hype? Or the right amount of hype? — Kevin P.
If it works, it’ll be a way to win. And like many ways to win, it will only work for certain programs. Let’s not pretend like every coach has the same charisma, pull and bravado as Deion Sanders. As I’m writing this, he’s literally on my TV trying to sell me almonds.
But when it doesn’t work, and boy will it not work for some teams, it’s going to leave a crater that’s going to be awfully tough to dig out of.
As for hype: They’re the most talked about team in college football right now. Coach Prime does numbers. It’ll be completely warranted as long as they’re winning.
I just don’t know how long that’ll be for.
— Tyson Alger, The I-5 Corridor
