In baseball, there’s an old saying that still rings true. Good pitching will defeat good hitting the majority of the time. The equivalent of that in football is a good defense can slow down an explosive offense for most of the game.
When it comes to the Oregon-Ohio State matchup, it’s the Buckeyes’ explosive offense against a good Duck defense.
The questions heading into this football game will be how long can the Oregon defense contain OSU, and will it be enough to give quarterback Anthony Brown and the rest of the Duck offense a chance to pull off the upset?
There’s no denying an Oregon win would constitute as a significant upset as the No. 11 Ducks travel into Columbus to take on the No. 3 Buckeyes at the Horseshoe in a nationally televised game on Fox set for a 9 a.m. kickoff.
It will also be in front of about 100,000 Ohio State fans who haven’t been able to see their team live in almost 650 days.
“If you’re a real competitor, you always want to test yourself against the very best, and Ohio State is an elite program from top to bottom,” Oregon coach Mario Cristobal said.
“I think you come to a place like Oregon to have opportunities like this, understanding the tremendous opportunity it is, and the tremendous challenge that it is. Just going against the very best.”
The Buckeyes last played Sept. 2 in a tough conference road game at Minnesota where it took them more than three quarters to dispatch the Golden Gophers 45-31.
Minnesota was within a touchdown with 5:30 left to play, but OSU scored a late touchdown to seal the deal and come out of Minneapolis victorious.
Oregon’s defense will be facing a dynamic quarterback, redshirt freshman CJ Stroud, who played limited minutes in 2020, but won the starting job in the spring and he showed why in Week 1.
In his first career start, Stroud was 13-of-23 for 298 yards, four touchdowns, and an interception. The Buckeyes also had plays of 56, 61, and 70 yards against the Minnesota defense, which helped their cause tremendously.
One would think the Duck defenders are better than Minnesota’s and will do a better job at containing All-American wide receivers Chris Olave and Garrett Wilson.
They’ll have to be if Oregon wants a chance at shocking the college football world.
“I don’t know that I’ve ever had to face two first-round picks. A lot of times, you may see a special guy and you can design coverages around trying to double him, but when you’ve got two guys, the talent that they have, it’s really difficult,” said Ducks defensive coordinator Tim DeRuyter.
“So it presents a huge challenge and our guys are going to have to be on point this week with their eyes, the physicality down the line so we can’t let things break so that we can play on the back end and try to contain these guys.”
But the Kayvon Thibodeaux injury situation is still a huge mystery on whether Oregon’s star defensive end will be on the field come Saturday. Head Coach Mario Cristobal said the training staff and Thibodeaux are working as hard as they can to get his ankle healthy enough to compete. It’ll be a game-time decision.
Whether Thibodeaux plays or not won’t play a factor in how well the Duck offense will do against an athletic, but inexperienced Ohio State defense.
If there is a weakness in the armor, it’s the secondary where the Buckeyes could be without two starting cornerbacks and their starting safety. Corners Cameron Brown and Sevyn Banks didn’t play last week and their status is still unknown. As is safety Josh Proctor, who hurt his shoulder in the second half against the Gophers and did not return.
Despite what the Oregon coaching staff is calling a “solid” performance from their quarterback, Brown will have to be significantly better in Week 2.
“Solid” will not get it done against Ohio State, no matter how inexperienced they may be.
Brown will need every tool in his tool belt – his arm, and his legs, to keep the opposition off balance and have the ability to move the ball down the field.
Should the Oregon offense be able to move the ball down the field at their pace and limit the Buckeyes’ ability to score quickly, it should be a great game that fans have been waiting on for a very long time.