Oregon Defeats Colorado For Their Fifth Win In A Row

Many football coaches will tell you that the games they truly fear are not when their own football team plays against a highly-touted opponent, but rather a lesser-heralded opponent that their own team might end up overlooking. Those are really the games that keep coaches up at night in the days prior to the contest.

So while the University of Oregon entered their game against the University of Colorado as 23-point favorites, Ducks head coach Mario Cristobal had to ensure that his team came out fully prepared and ready to play, as opposed to buying into their own hype amidst a four-game winning streak.

Thankfully, the outcome of the contest against the Buffaloes would almost never be in question throughout Oregon’s 45-3 win over Colorado last Friday. The Ducks scored a touchdown on the opening drive of the game, opened up a three-touchdown lead at halftime, held Colorado without a touchdown all day, and limited the Buffaloes to less than 300 yards of total offense (while also forcing four turnovers).

Senior quarterback Justin Herbert capped off Oregon’s nine-play, 75-yard drive with a 7-yard pass to tight end Jacob Breeland on the game’s opening drive. It was the first of his two touchdown passes on the day, with the other coming on the opening drive of the third quarter. He finished the game with a workmanlike 261 yards through the air. Perhaps more importantly, he threw no interceptions for the fifth time in six games this year. Herbert’s 17 touchdown passes on the season has him tied for 7th in the nation with the most touchdown passes in college football, and second-most among all Pac-12 quarterbacks.

Without question, the crux of Oregon’s offense came from their rushing attack. Running backs CJ Verde, Travis Dye, and Cyrus Habibi-Likio combined for 272 yards rushing on 30 attempts, with Habibi-Likio tallying three rushing touchdowns on the day. On Oregon’s final scoring drive late in the fourth quarter, the Ducks traveled 85 yards on just six plays, with Verdell’s 70-yard run being followed by five-straight rushing attempts by Habibi-Likio, the last of which spanned one yard for his final touchdown of the afternoon. He scored the last of Oregon’s six touchdowns early in the fourth quarter, putting them up 45-3.

Ironically, Oregon could have scored even more points, as they looked to milk the clock late in the fourth quarter with a six-play, 61-yard drive overseen by backup quarterback Tyler Shough. But at the Colorado 21-yard line, rather than opting to score more points (and rub it in the face of an opponent), Cristobal elected to go for it on 4th and 3, with Dye’s two-yard rushing attempt coming up just short.

While the Ducks firmly sit atop the Pac-12 standings, they have no time to enjoy it. They’ll be traveling to Tacoma this weekend to take on the University of Washington Huskies in a 3:30pm PST matchup that will have enormous ramifications on the eventual conference championship picture. They’ll have to fend off a Huskies team eager to avenge their 30-27 overtime loss to the Ducks last season.