If the Oregon-Washington game was an old western movie, there would be none of “the good” for the Ducks. There would just be “the bad and the ugly.”
The Ducks didn’t just let their third-straight Pac-12 opponent to score more than 40 points in a game. They didn’t just let a team from Washington score more than 50 points in a game. No, they let the fifth-ranked University of Washington hang up 70 points on their beleaguered defense, en route to a 70-21 win over the Ducks. The win snapped the Huskies’ 12-game losing streak to the University of Oregon.
Huskies sophomore quarterback Jake Browning accounted for eight total touchdowns, throwing for six of them (alongside his 304 yards passing) and running for two more. Washington piled up almost seven hundred yards of total offense against Oregon, running the ball for 378 yards and four touchdowns, in addition to Browning’s 304 yards through the air.
Meanwhile, on the Oregon side, freshman quarterback Justin Herbert, making his first college start in place of graduate transfer Dakota Prukop, could do little to stop the Huskie onslaught. He completed 21 of 34 passing attempts for 179 yards (averaging only 5.3 yards per attempt). While the two touchdown passes might look nice, those are counter-balanced by the fact that they came when Oregon was already facing a four touchdown deficit, and the fact that Herbert’s quarterback rating (QBR) for the afternoon was a lowly 19.7.
Washington scored early, often, and with ease all afternoon. They scored touchdowns on three of their first four drives of the day. Halfway through the first quarter, Washington had already jumped out to a 14-0 lead. After the Ducks defense mercifully forced the Huskies to punt on their third drive, the next time Washington got the ball, sophomore running back Myles Gaskin exploded for a 65 yard touchdown run on the first play of the drive.
Meanwhile, on their first four drives, Oregon turned the football over twice — including the interception Herbert threw on the game’s first offensive play from scrimmage — and punted twice (going 10 yards on six plays in those two drives).
Whether it was intentionally or unintentionally, Washington’s offense didn’t take their proverbial foot off the gas pedal in the second half, scoring 35 more points to help pad their 35-7 halftime lead.
The last time the Huskies scored 70 points in a game (1944) and/or the Ducks allowed 70 or more points in a game (1941), Franklin D. Roosevelt was the President of the United States, and the country was right in the middle of World War II.
It’s likely going to be a very long and uncomfortable week for Ducks head coach Mark Helfrich, and embattled defensive coordinator Brady Hoke. Oregon fan blogs and sites are already calling for the firing of both coaches, and discussing potential replacements. If nothing else, there is a major lack of confidence in the leadership of this football team.
Oregon has to do whatever it can to salvage the remainder of this season, starting with their game in Berkeley, California next week, when they take on the Golden Bears of the University of California. After that, they host the Arizona Sun Devils, before entering a brutal slate of November games, taking on USC (in Los Angeles), hosting Stanford, and travelling to Utah to play the Utes.
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