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In Oregon’s Big Ten debut, the Ducks treated the Bruins just like old times.
PASADENA — “Dillon with you?”
Oregon had banked its first Big Ten win and the Ducks didn’t intend on sticking around any longer than they needed to. Certainly not in the bowels of the Rose Bowl as the clock crept towards midnight, against an opponent, the UCLA Bruins, who were by no means of victory lap caliber.
Yet as receiver Tez Johnson entered the visitor’s media room flanked by defensive end Jordan Burch, a member of the Ducks’ athletic department delayed the start of the press conference, giving them the directive to check the hallway for their quarterback, Dillon Gabriel, all the same.
“He’s short,” Johnson joked, “he gets lost in the crowd sometimes.”
That’s when Johnson, himself a slender figure, walked to the farthest of three chairs and sat down before announcing to the far more imposing Burch, and the rest of the room, that they’d be saving the middle chair for Gabriel or, as he put it, “QB1.”
They say the best connections are formed off the field, right? It’s safe to say Johnson’s a believer in going the extra mile.
After a 34-13 road win over the UCLA Bruins, No. 8 Oregon remains — despite all the expectations, the close calls, and (mostly) unnecessary consternation — perfect. The winning recipe on this night? Well, the man who was smart enough to leave the middle seat open, and the one who filled it but a minute later, had a lot to do with it.
As half the nation slept late Saturday night, Gabriel and Johnson connected 11 times, two of which put points on the board, in front of a Rose Bowl that welcomed north of 43,000 fans — though plenty of those onlookers wore green.
It was Johnson who Gabriel targeted three-straight times to kickstart a touchdown drive on the game’s first possession. It was Johnson who Gabriel launched a 52-yard bomb to, pushing the Ducks ahead by three scores with nine minutes left in the first half. And it was Johnson — because it just had to be — who Gabriel’s insistence on finding briefly put the Ducks in a bind, rendering necessary a fourth-quarter kill shot that went to … guess who?
Johnson accounted for 121 of Gabriel’s 280 yards. No Duck receiver has ever caught more passes against UCLA in a single game than he did Saturday. And his reliability as both a chain-mover and a field-stretcher is a big reason why the Ducks’ new quarterback — just like its last — is leading the nation in completion percentage.
Gabriel found his receivers’ hands 31 times in 41 tries on Saturday. He was — save for a rough 3-of-9 stretch between the end of the first half and start of the second — nearly perfect.
“It’s all him,” Lanning said postgame when asked about the driving force of the Ducks’ aerial attack, “he’s the one making every play. None of these coaches can go make any of those plays. Dillon’s been extremely efficient all year. I think he’s taken what the opponent gives him, but he’s got to continue to do that.”
So, about that stretch.
Oregon appeared in cruise control, a welcome sign amid a season that’s had more drama than the Ducks’ talent and expectations seemed to promise. Oregon scored on all five of its opening drives, highlighted by the deep pass to Johnson on which the speedster would later say he simply “outran” the Bruins secondary. The lead had ballooned to 25-3 after Atticus Sappington’s second field goal of the half and suddenly, with under two minutes to go, the Ducks were knocking at the door once more, perched on the UCLA six-yard line.
Gabriel dropped back and looked to his right where Johnson wrestled with a Bruin defensive back in the endzone, but as he fired yet another pass Johnson’s way, the receiver lost his balance and soon enough it was former Oregon safety Bryan Addison running the other direction with Gabriel’s first interception of the season. Addison wound his way down the field, momentarily bringing to life a portion of the home fans, and delivered what would be UCLA’s only touchdown of the day.
“Probably shouldn’t have done it,” Gabriel said, “having a guaranteed three (points) there. Throwing it away would probably be the smart move, you know, trusting our guys. A play like that, that happens.”
It wasn’t exactly how the Ducks — a team hell-bent on dominating the “middle eight” — intended to enter halftime, and that they opened the second half with two straight punts could well be attributed to the letdown.
But Oregon showed trust in Gabriel, allowing the Ducks offense to move primarily through the air Saturday, and he poured it right back into Johnson as the two delivered a much-needed knock-out punch with 9:37 left in the game, the quarterback wheeling out of the pocket and finding him in the back of the end zone with a 12-yard strike.
“I think that just shows trust and belief in one another,” Gabriel said. “Things are gonna happen. Adversity is gonna happen, and, obviously, things that you don’t want to happen. But that’s not gonna stop me going back to my guy.”
Gabriel wasn’t sacked Saturday, which comes as a relief after the blows he took in the team’s first two panic-riddled weeks.
A more than complementary defensive performance — Oregon allowed just 172 total yards and came away with two interceptions — helped ensure the Bruins never truly threatened and earned high praise from Lanning, who called it the unit’s best outing of the young season.
At 4-0 overall and 1-0 in Big Ten play, the unblemished Ducks still have plenty to prove and improve, and a win against a decimated, bottom-rung conference foe doesn’t much move the needle in the big picture. Not with Ohio State coming to town in two weeks.
There is, however, a sense this team is very much still growing. Still finding its way. Still finding, for the most part, its go-to guys.
Gabriel seems to have found his though, and for now, the Ducks will take it.
— Shane Hoffmann, for The I-5 Corridor
