Ducks can’t undo Oklahoma State. They can start fixing what’s directly in front of them.

The Oregon Ducks play the Portland State Vikings on Friday night at Autzen Stadium, and it would sure be nice to move on to normal talking points like a short week of rest, the challenge of not looking past an FCS opponent and whether the game time, coupled with Portland’s I-5 closure, will create the longest commute in Ducks history.

The Ducks, for what it’s worth, are ready for that, too. Oklahoma State is history and, no, they’re not going to acknowledge the USC Trojans on the horizon.

The past is nothing. The future doesn’t matter. From now on, coach Dan Lanning said, it’s about living in the moment.

“If this team gets better, and we play like we’re capable of playing, then we could have a team that could be pretty good,” Lanning said Monday night. “But it doesn’t matter unless we focus on today. Let’s stop worrying about tomorrow. Let’s stop worrying about the end of the season. Let’s worry about today.”

But before getting to that, Tuesday forced one last uncomfortable look back at Saturday’s debacle against Oklahoma State.

No, the score hadn’t suddenly grown worse than the 39-31 defeat already was, but the negative discourse reached a crescendo Monday night when Lanning staunchly defended quarterback Dante Moore for not being available for media on Saturday.

Moore was getting two IVs at the time to treat dehydration, Lanning said, and when a reporter responded that the information wasn’t relayed to media, Lanning countered: “Well, should it be?”

The reporter said yes.

“So, before you write your article, they should say, ‘Hey, just so you guys know,'” Lanning said, before saying reporters misconstrued the story and giving a sarcastic “good job.”

That was Monday. Tuesday, Lanning let everyone know, was the opportunity to ask Moore about it.

And he was available.

“I was going through a little tough time at the end of the game, but I wanted to push through the game for my teammates, give them my all and make sure I left everything on the field,” Moore said.

He was later asked if he had ever needed postgame treatment like that before.

“Yeah, I always get treatment, even after practices and things,” Moore said. “But yeah, that was a tough one. It’s a great learning curve for me. I have to make sure I stay hydrated and take care of myself.

“When those situations happen again, I’ve been through it already, so I’ll be prepared.”

Ideally, Oregon won’t encounter many of them Friday.

The Ducks face a Portland State team that has a new coach, is off to a winless start and most recently played the Ducks to the tune of an 81-7 loss in 2023.

It’s not exactly the type of game where a program can redeem itself.

But it is one where the Ducks can slow the freefall.

The Ducks want fewer penalties. They want fewer missed assignments and dropped passes, better execution on first down and, according to Lanning, better judgment on fourth.

“We have to be a team that can convert in those situations, or we have to not put ourselves in that situation to go for it. So, it’s those two things,” he said. “I mean, we also had fourth downs that could have been completed and had success. They weren’t. So, you have to live in the reality of: are we able to execute on fourth down, and convert when we’re not (in fourth down). Eventually, that’s going to affect your aggressiveness in the way we play. And could-have and should-have probably affected mine. But it’s hard for me to say on a fourth-and-1 or fourth-and-2.

“Now, fourth-and-8? Yeah, dumb. But fourth-and-1, we’ve converted a lot of those and had a lot of success in my time here. It goes back to execution. It goes back to having a great plan and being able to execute in those situations.”

Now, Moore can’t solve all of Oregon’s problems. He doesn’t play defense, where the Ducks allowed 554 total yards. But he has seen areas where he can improve.

After completing 76% of his passes for a career-high 378 yards in Week 1’s win over Boise State, Moore completed just 48% of his passes for 191 yards in Saturday’s loss and was sacked four times.

“It was a game where there were a lot of misreads and a lot of misthrows,” Moore said. “That all falls on me. There were some times where there was miscommunication, and that all falls on me, too.” 

Coupled with Oregon’s 90 rushing yards in the game, the Ducks had detectives all over the internet dissecting film to see what went wrong — including one tell in Moore’s pre-snap stance that can give away whether the Ducks are running or passing.

Moore didn’t deny that may be the case. But he’s seen the problem now, which means he can go about fixing it.

“Yeah, every player has tendencies,” Moore said. “It can be from the NFL, it can be in college, it can be anybody. That’s why there’s coaches on staff that find little details.

“It just shows me as a player that I have things that I need to fix and every player has it. It can be a great thing for a team, and I’ve got to make sure I don’t show it to a defense to help them get into a better check.”

Portland State won’t tell us whether Oregon has fixed everything that went wrong in Stillwater. But it can tell us whether the Ducks have started.

“That’s not who we are as an offense,” Moore said. “We’ve been attacking it this whole week, and we’re excited for our next opportunity.”