One might look at the final score and not be overly impressed by the 34-13 that was on the Rose Bowl scoreboard Saturday night.
But when the Oregon Ducks walked out of the Rose Bowl and left Pasadena with a convincing win over UCLA, they arrived home knowing they are prepared to face some stiffer Big Ten competition.
You have to look closer at the game against UCLA to know how dominating the Ducks were on both sides of the ball, especially defensively.
The Bruins were held to under 200 yards of total offense and just 73 on the ground. Oregon abused the UCLA offensive line and eventually knocked out quarterback Ethan Garbers, who left nine minutes later with an injured ankle.
But on the offensive end of things for the boys in green and yellow, the Ducks scored on their first five possessions and led early at 28-3 in the first two quarters of play.
That early score would have been 35-3, however, receiver Tez Johnson slipped and fell to the Rose Bowl turf at the endzone which allowed UCLA safety and former Duck Bryan Addison to snag an easy interception and take it the other way for 96 yards and the touchdown heading into halftime.
From that point forward in the second half, Oregon knew that if it just held on to the ball, moved the chains, and won the time of possession, the Bruins offense couldn’t rally.
And that’s exactly what happened.
Jordan James ended with 103 yards, most of those yards coming in the second half. And Dillon Gabriel was efficient with the ball and never tried to force anything. Oregon was happy to punt the ball away and hand things over to the defense if it wasn’t there.
Most Big Ten games are going to be like this.
Not flashy, won on the line of scrimmage and the defense will have to win the day.
The No. 6 Ducks are going to have to do what it takes to win on any given Saturday and the UCLA victory was just one example of that.