The Sunday Duck Report: A messy and revealing first sample

There is an understandable tendency to overreact after games like these.

It’s been eight months since Oregon’s season ended in the Peach Bowl. Oregon’s stars came back. The expectations were set. The big goal remained the same.

It’s not only the media that think Dan Lanning’s Ducks can win a national championship. His team and his fans do, too. And every milepost along the way will be viewed in such context.

Especially the first game — the first chance to see the real, living football team that’s been mythologized since January. It’s a small sample size. But it is the sample.

And the Oregon Ducks needed all four quarters to beat Boise State, 34-27.

Online discourse locked on to the newly promoted coordinators, the situational play and the hype.

Where was the running game?

Where was the vaunted pass rush?

What the heck was going on with special teams?

Internal discourse did a little, too.

Lanning called his defense “off schedule” all afternoon. He lamented Oregon’s three failed efforts on fourth down and the team’s 10 penalties.

“That’s not winning football,” Lanning said. “So, some things we have to clean up.”

It was winning football, though — something often lost in the periphery when looking through a microscope.

Remember, this was a Boise State team that played Oregon deep into the fourth quarter here at Autzen two years ago, a game — coupled with Oregon’s lackluster debut that season against Idaho — that caused a few early presses of the panic button among the fanbase.

The Ducks wouldn’t lose a regular-season game that year. Boise State made the playoffs, too.

Or how about three years ago, when Lanning’s Ducks needed a Camden Lewis field goal with 1:10 remaining to avoid a Week 2 faceplant against Texas Tech after another summer of hype that included billboards of Bo Nix in New York and Dallas.

“Can you imagine if they didn’t pull that thing out?” I wrote after that one. “Had Oregon’s defense not finally made a stand, had Camden Lewis’ foot not been nails and had Bo Nix not played like a guy worthy of all of this praise, this would all be done. Heisman race? Playoffs? More like left on the tarmac.”

The Ducks scored 55 points the next week in a 55-10 win over Hawaii. A week later came the “they’re fighting for clicks” win over Colorado. That Oregon team would only lose to Washington.

This is the sort of thing Dante Moore seemed to understand after the game. He’s in his fourth season of college football, his second year as a starter at Oregon and, like Nix against Texas Tech, he made the plays when he needed to Saturday to secure Oregon’s win.

The numbers were outstanding — he completed 28 of 37 passes for a career-high 378 yards and three touchdowns — and so was his composure when he calmly hit Dakorien Moore for the go-ahead 62-yard touchdown with 7:51 remaining.

Afterward, he spoke like a boxer who welcomes a few punches to get him into the fight.

“When they scored, we had to respond,” Moore said. “Sometimes we didn’t respond, and we just had to make sure that every time we had a chance to score, we didn’t miss the opportunity.

“So we had some great plays, some bad plays. I’m glad this game was how it was. We’ve got a lot to learn. Thank God it wasn’t a 40- or 50-point blowout because this just shows us who we are right now and how we have to attack going into next week.”

And the thing is, the Ducks weren’t that far off from a 40- or 50-point blowout.

The Ducks nearly doubled up the Broncos in total offense (497 yards to 274). Oregon’s defense only allowed 2.6 yards per rush, and that aforementioned vaunted pass rush showed up in the fourth, highlighted by Matayo Uiagalelei’s sack on Boise State’s ensuing drive after Oregon took the lead.

It was the early situational football that kept things close. But that also gave Lanning an opportunity to measure what might be the most important part of this season.

Because talent isn’t the differentiator here. Oregon has had plenty of it during Lanning’s previous seasons of great expectations. Much of this roster was here for last year’s run, too. What Lanning said was different throughout the offseason was the accountability — and the ability of a veteran roster to correct itself.

“I think the measure for me is, you’ve got to figure out what button you’re going to push. Is this one where you need to go and ramp it up and change the energy and the juice, or is this one where you need to have patience?” Lanning said. “Ultimately, for me, I felt like that was one where we have to click it into high gear, and the player-led leadership that we talked about all offseason has to show up.”

It did, moving the Ducks to 1-0 in the big picture before heading back under the microscope Saturday in Stillwater.

“I think we’ve learned a lot this offseason,” Moore said. “There have been times at practice where the offense has started super slow, and Coach Lanning said, ‘Hey, it’s adversity. What are you going to do?’

“So it all comes back to how we respond.”

This story is part of Lookout Eugene-Springfield’s new Sunday Duck Report. For the full report, subscribe to the free newsletter here.