Finally!
It’s been over 11 months since the Ducks have played a game, any game, on the gridiron and the schedule makers didn’t do Oregon any favors with the opener.
Rival Stanford came into a empty and quiet Autzen Stadium to take on the Ducks and hopefully, for them, set a tone and erase the memory of a disappointing 4-8 season a year ago.
Quiet Autzen or not, Mario Cristobal’s team wasn’t having any of that as the Ducks scored 28 unanswered points en route to a 35-14 win.
Quarterback Tyler Shough played through some early jitters and calmed down to slice and dice the Cardinal defense with his arm and his legs. Everyone knew about Shough’s arm, but he might have stunned Stanford with his ability to run the football in key situations.
Overall, the new signal-caller went 17-of-26 throwing, good for 227 yards, a touchdown, and an interception. But he did run 11 times for 85 yards and another score. On consecutive plays, Shough scrambled for 15 yards by juking two people and then scored from nine yards out by faking one way and going another.
It’s a facet of the offense Oregon didn’t utilize last season as they were ultra-careful not to get Justin Herbert injured. There weren’t any trepidations with Shough.
Stanford came into the game a bit short-handed as the Cardinal were missing two defensive starters with injury. But then the big blow came a few hours before game time as starting quarterback Davis Mills was ruled out due to COVID protocols and contact tracing.
In his place were Jack West and Tanner McGee with West receiving the majority of the playing time. The 6-4 junior was effective at times, especially earn on when he led a nine-play, 80-yard drive to take a 7-0 lead.
Oregon tied the game three minutes later as CJ Verdell powered his way through the Stanford defense from 10-yards out to make it 7-7 just before the end of the first quarter.
Both teams traded possessions for much of the second quarter, but the big story was the futility of the Cardinal kicker, Jet Toner. The senior kicker had missed just 10 field goal attempts in his previous three seasons. But tonight, he was way off, going 0-for-4.
While the misses didn’t ultimately cost Stanford the game, they did kill any momentum the Cardinal tried to muster up.
Oregon made it 14-7 with a minute before halftime on DJ Johnson’s five-yard touchdown reception. The big 6-5, 260-pound tight end proved to be a huge matchup problem for the Cardinal as he caught five passes for 55 yards and that score.
The Ducks basically made it two straight touchdowns without giving the ball to Stanford as they received the ball to open the second half and Oregon capitalized with Travis Dye’s 14-yard touchdown run to make it 21-7.
After another missed field goal, Oregon made it 28-7 on Shough’s lone touchdown.
Down by three scores, Stanford’s offense had to be a bit one-dimentional, but the Cardinal were able to score once more with 7:39 left. At 28-14, Stanford could have made it more of a game, but Oregon capped off the scoring on Cyrus Hibibi-Likio four-yard touchdown run with just 3:38 left.
All that was remaining was the formalities as Oregon can now prepare to go to the Palouse to play Washington State, a team in flux with a new coach and new offense.
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