The Oregon Ducks find themselves at an important inflection point. Sitting at 2-1, and entering conference play on the road, this very well could be a defining moment for both the season and for new Head Coach Dan Lanning. Suffice it to say, the season opener was shocking for most college football fans. Losing 49-3 on the road to the defending national champion Georgia Bulldogs in what was both their season opener as well as the high profile beginning of the 2022 college football season looked bad.
To the casual fan, the Ducks were completely dominated and never capable of doing anything. To the more well-versed fan, it was clear the Ducks weren’t so much incapable of quality performance as much as they appeared physically overmatched by the talent on the Georgia roster. To the experienced analyst, the take was different.
Experienced analysts on the field said the Ducks looked as one would expect of a team that was just introduced to their new playbooks 6-8 weeks prior. Some said they needed 2-3 more weeks of practice to get their schemes down, and they pointed to the miscues and confusion both at the line of scrimmage and in the backfield.
However, there’s another take on the matter worthy of mention. An analyst on the sideline in Atlanta suggested the Oregon Athletic Director lost the game. That’s right. Call it a bold take, but let’s examine the history. The Georgia Bulldogs have been a great team for many years. Leading up to their 2015 campaign, they were under the direction of head coach Mark Richt. They were high performing, posted 10+ win seasons, and back in 2006, they had agreed to a home-and-home series with Oregon.
In 2014, the Oregon Ducks performed well, won the college football playoff semifinal, and went to the 2015 national championship game where they lost to the Ohio State Buckeyes. Meanwhile, the Georgia Bulldogs lost Mark Richt to the University of Miami. Georgia’s athletic director called the Oregon athletic director and cancelled the home-and-home series. While citing travel distance as a concern, Georgia knew they were going to have a new head coach, and they certainly did not want to be embarrassed on the road. In fact, Kirby Smart, who became the new head coach after being the defensive coordinator at the University of Alabama, struggled in his first year and led the Bulldogs to an underwhelming 8-5 record. Would they have lost on the road at Oregon? that is difficult to say. However, the risk was real, perhaps too real to realize.
Fast forward to Oregon in 2021. The Ducks had recruited well under then Head Coach Mario Cristobal. They understood their offensive and defensive systems, and they had At least half a decade of experience with their existing playbook. When Cristobal announced that he was leaving, Oregon’s athletic director should have called the athletic director at Georgia and canceled the game. Weather he cited travel distance, the expense, or something else, is neither here nor there. The bottom line is that it was Georgia coming off a national championship game performance, one that they were successful in, and it was the Ducks who had a new head coach and a new system to install. Ironically, Oregon lost their head coach to the University of Miami, the same place Georgia had lost its previous coach.
Thus, one can make the argument that it was not in fact the athletes on the field, nor the coaches on the sideline, who lost the game against Georgia, but that it was in fact the responsibility of the athletic director, and that he set the program up to face extremely difficult, if not insurmountable odds playing on the road in Atlanta. A fair leadership advisory would probably include a note to accept responsibility and move on.
Coming off that trip, the Ducks were 0-1. Many mocked them as the laughingstock of college football, but the truth is that this team may very well have been much more talented than the product that appeared on the field in Atlanta. In week two, Oregon faced a completely overmatched FCS opponent, Eastern Washington. The Eagles were defeated as expected, and the ducks appeared to be getting back on track. Week 3 cemented that after the ducks delivered a decisive win over a highly ranked BYU team.
Now, the ducks are headed to Pullman, Washington, to play the Washington State Cougars. Always a tricky opponent, and entering the game with a record of 3-0, that includes a significant road win at then ranked Wisconsin, and a decisive home win over Colorado State, it is clear the WSU Cougars are dangerous. A road win in the Palouse will not only further add to the story that Oregon is in fact a good team this season, but it will also help the team keep pace in a very competitive Pac-12 conference race.
That is where things get particularly interesting. USC currently sits atop the Pac-12 South standings, and while that may be consistent with popular predictions, it certainly is not consistent with the new head coach and playbook distinction asserted as an issue in Oregon’s opening loss. Then again, USC opened the season against it completely overmatched Rice, and then on the road at unranked Stanford, followed by a return home against unranked Fresno State. Nevertheless, they’re 3-0 and 1-0 in the conference. That has them at the top of the standings. UCLA sits behind USC, followed by 2-1 Arizona and 2-1 Utah, who remains highly ranked despite an opening road loss to the Florida Gators. The Pac-12 south will shake out over time as these teams play each other, of course.
The same is true for the Pac-12 north. Things will sort themselves out over time. As mentioned, Oregon begins that mission this weekend in Pullman. However, it is currently 3-0 Oregon State who sits atop the north standings, and the ranked 3-0 Washington Huskies who sit right behind them. WSU, also 3-0, sits right behind them. Call that a formality as none have played a conference opponent yet, and all are undefeated. That will change this weekend. Oregon State hosts USC, Washington hosts Stanford, and as previously mentioned, WSU hosts Oregon. In another interesting game perhaps slightly under the radar, Cal hosts Arizona, and the winner of that game will be 3-1, 1-1 Pac-12. Beware of dark horses.
Perhaps it’s too early for predictions. The transfer portal, those graduate transfer students, the pandemic and its extra year of eligibility, conference realignment – whatever the issues are, there are a few things that are true: (1) it is difficult to win in the Palouse; (2) it is difficult to win at Husky Stadium; (3) no ranked opponent has won in Corvallis in over a decade, nearly two! What is also true is that the weather is changing fast. From the high heat of summer and the fire smoke that filled the air during the segue to Fall, things have changed in a hurry. It’s getting chilly at night. There’s rain in some forecasts. It’s football season, and over the next couple of months we’ll find out how good the Ducks and the rest of the Pac-12 conference really are.
Back in Atlanta, Georgia fans had nothing bad to say about Oregon. On the contrary, several said “we’ll see you in the playoffs.” Whether that happens this year or not remains to be seen. There are a lot of moving parts this year and going forward. All a team can do is take it one week at a time.
Ahsan Awan has been covering NCAA sports for over a decade, and has been covering college football, including the Oregon Ducks and the Pacific 12 Conference, since 2008. All images taken by Ahsan Awan for American Presswire. ©2022 Ahsan Awan for American Presswire, subject to unlimited use under license unless otherwise noted. He can be found on Twitter as @quackarazzi and on Instagram as @quackarazzi.