The Ducks knew going in that Iowa State had one of those offensive lines that had the capability to push around opponents and bully their way down the field.
What the Ducks didn’t know was that they would turn the ball over four times to put the defense in a bad position to succeed.
All of those factors led to the Cyclones defeating Oregon 34-17 in the 50th annual PlayStation Fiesta Bowl.
Oregon might consider itself lucky that it wasn’t worse.
The defense had a goalline stop and then forced two field goals after a muffed punt and a kickoff that wasn’t recovered.
When all was said and done, the Cyclones held the ball for 42 minutes, 48 seconds and ran 85 plays to Oregon’s 46.
“I felt in the first half, we were starting to gain the momentum until we had the issue with the kickoff return” said Oregon head coach Mario Cristobal after the game.
“That’s not D.J.’s [Johnson] fault. He was trying to get it, and on the sideline, all of us were trying to get him to get away from the ball. He was trying to judge it, so that’s not his fault. But overall, we felt in the first half, we were generating enough plays, and we were starting to get a feel for it on
defense with the fourth down.
Stopped down at the 1-yard line, the 99-yard drive that we can really put ourselves in a good situation, especially getting the ball in the first and second half. We didn’t do that.”
After a first half where the Cyclones scored 28 points, the Duck defense made some adjustments and held Iowa State down, giving the offense a chance to rally.
But the Ducks couldn’t manage to sustain any kind of consistency from one possession to the next after halftime.
It was just the opposite in the first half when Oregon went up and down the field.
Down 7-0 after Iowa State’s first possession ran more than seven minutes off the clock in the first quarter, Tyler Shough led the Ducks down the field until Anthony Brown came in to score on a 6-yard rush.
Shough was 3-of-3 on that opening drive. After that, however, Shough didn’t see the field until midway through the third quarter.
Brown was playing well as he led Oregon on a nine-play, 98-yard scoring drive that ended when he scampered for a 16-yard touchdown to tie the game 14-14.
This came after Iowa State had a golden opportunity to blow the game wide open, but was stuffed at the goal line on a fourth-and-goal from the one.
Even with that stop, the writing was on the wall as the Cyclones were able to power their way down the field against the Duck defense.
Eventually, that was going to catch up with Oregon and it did.
Henry Katleman’s 47-yard field goal towards the end of the half made it 28-17 at halftime and with the Ducks receiving the second half kickoff, it was Oregon’s chance to climb back into the game.
Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the success of the offense in the first half just wasn’t there. The Ducks kept rotating in Shough and Brown, hoping to find some kind of spark, but it never happened.
“We went into the game with the same type of packages for Anthony and short yardage, and some 4-minute stuff” explained Cristobal about the QB rotation.
“But we did determine that we were going to put him in in the second quarter to play. He developed a hot hand, so we stayed with the hot hand. That was what transpired, nothing else.”
Muffed punts and fumbled didn’t help either though.
Oregon muffed a punt midway through the third that led to a field goal to make it 31-17 Cyclones.
Although Brown’s fumble at midfield in the third didn’t directly lead to a score, it forced Oregon’s tired defense back onto the field which didn’t help matters.
Tailback Breece Hall ran the ball 34 times for 134 yards and two touchdowns. As a team, the Ducks rushed for 86.
Quarterback Brock Purdy was an efficient 20-of-29 for 156 yards and a touchdown. More importantly, no interceptions. Iowa State made very few mistakes and it showed.
Brown was 12-of-17 for 147 yards passing and he rushed for 36 yards and scored twice. But the majority of those stats came in the first half.
Now with this weird season out of the way, the Ducks can now regroup and refocus on what is hopefully more of a normal season in 2021.
They also have a lot to look forward to with one of the top recruiting classes in the country.
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