The college football season is a roller coaster with a bunch of ups and downs. Oregon experienced a huge “up” last week with the 45-30 win over previously undefeated UCLA.
Now the Ducks need to avoid “the down” and an upset of their own as they travel to Berkeley, Calif. to take on a strange California team that sits at 3-4.
The Golden Bears are strange because they were expected to be a lot better than that overall record and 1-3 in conference play. Head coach Justin Wilcox turned down the job in Eugene last offseason because it was assumed he was on the verge of building something special at Cal.
But so far, the Bears are far from special.
The suffered a 20-13 overtime loss to Colorado of all teams. They do however, may have a special tailback in true freshman Jaydn Ott, someone the Oregon defense will need to key in on if they do want to come back to Eugene with a victory.
“I think he’s been freshman player of the week for three weeks,” Oregon coach Dan Lanning said of the Cal running back. “He does a good job running the ball. He runs with great physicality and effort and that shows up.”
Ott is averaging nearly 90 yards a game and he absolutely torched Arizona for 274 yards on the ground and three touchdowns.
Handing the ball off to Ott is senior transfer quarterback Jack Plummer fromm Purdue. He won’t light up the stat sheet, but he does complete 61 percent of his throws and doesn’t make many mistakes with just three interceptions on the season.
But the Golden Bears have a tendancy to allow the sack and the Ducks might blitz more today than they have all season. The California offensive line has allowed 23 sacks. In comparison, Oregon quarterback Bo Nix has been sacked just once all year.
The Ducks might pick on the California secondary as well because everyone else has. The Bears allow 275 yards through the air and the Ducks will present the best passing game they will face all season.
They do have a familiar name on defense in linebacker Jackson Sirmon, the former Washington Husky. He’s also the son of former Duck Peter Sirmon.The younger Sirmon leads the Bears with 63 tackles. He also has 4.5 tackles for loss and a sack.
Oregon has had an interesting history with going to Berkeley. They’ve been upset by inferior teams or has had to deal with strange weather like fog, rain, or both. But none of that is expected. The weather forecast is partly sunny and 62 degrees at kickoff.
Oregon 48, Cal 17